PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces retook a counter-terrorism interrogation centre on Tuesday two days after militants seized it, security sources told Reuters, but the fate of hostages inside remained unclear.
Security forces were still looking to clear the entire compound after launching the operation to free the hostages from the Pakistani Taliban militants who snatched interrogators’ weapons and took their captives on Sunday.
Six security officials and several detainees were inside the centre, said the sources, who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“The operation is being concluded and there is no more resistance ... the security forces have entered into the compound,” one security source said.
He said details on the hostages and number of casualties would be given after the clearance operation was completed.
Security forces had surrounded the military district in which the centre is located in the northwestern town of Bannu, where about 20 fighters from the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), were holed up.
“All options failed and the terrorists refused to free innocent people, so we decided to use force,” a senior security official told Reuters earlier.
He said minimum force would be used to ensure the safe release of the hostages.
According to an update from another security official, the army’s elite commando unit, the Special Service Group (SSG), had been called in to carry out the operation.
Residents said they heard explosions coming from the vicinity of the centre on Tuesday.
Pakistani authorities on Monday opened talks to try to resolve the stand-off with the militants.
The TTP are loosely allied with the Afghan Taliban. The group emerged to fight the Pakistani state in the years after the United States and its allies intervened in neighboring Afghanistan to oust the Afghan Taliban and drive over the border into Pakistan.
The TTP has stepped up attacks since it announced the end of an Afghan Taliban-brokered ceasefire with the government last month.
According to a provincial government spokesman, the militants were demanding safe passage to Afghanistan.
A member of the Pakistani Taliban earlier told Reuters that the group’s leadership had lost contact with their people in the compound.
“We are told that a military operation has started,” he said.