On Sunday, extremists stormed a prison in Pakistan and seized several security forces. The military finally brought the hostage-taking to a bloody end.
Security forces guard the road leading to the prison during the military operation.
(dpa) The Pakistani military has bloodily ended a hostage situation at a prison for imprisoned terrorists. Special forces killed 33 hostage-takers during the rescue operation in the unrest-ridden northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said in parliament. When the facility was stormed on Tuesday, two soldiers were killed and several prisoners and security forces were injured.
The actual liberation operation lasted a good hour, the taking of hostages much longer. Militant extremists had already stormed the prison on Sunday and taken several security forces into their power. The attackers wanted to free prisoners and force them to leave Afghanistan unmolested, which has been under Taliban control again since August 2021. According to security sources, the hostage-takers included supporters of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).
The military operation on Tuesday was preceded by negotiations that ultimately failed. A long firefight followed, and explosions could also be heard, said a police officer. On the night of Tuesday, Pakistani soldiers also fended off attempts by dozens of attackers to storm a military post.
Conflicts with armed extremists have recently flared up again in Pakistan after several years of relative calm in the region. At the end of November, the Pakistani Taliban declared the ceasefire agreed with the government in Islamabad in May to be over and called on their fighters to carry out attacks. The TTP is an umbrella organization of militant Islamist groups that is said to have several thousand fighters. The Pakistani military expelled them to Afghanistan between 2008 and 2014. Since the Afghan Taliban took power in Kabul, the TTP has regrouped in its former strongholds on the Afghan border.