Noor Wali Mehsud, the head of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)**, said on Monday that the militants who took Pakistani counter-terror officials hostage in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province don’t require “safe passage” to Afghanistan.
Mehsud released an audio message to the TTP’s mouthpiece Umar Media on Tuesday, as around 20 heavily armed terrorists continued to hold around eight people hostage, including police personnel, at a counter-terrorism (CT) department police station in the district of Bannu, KP province.
The TTP chief claimed the militants had made the demands in “ignorance,” as they had been in sleeper cells for a long time and weren’t aware of the “realities on the ground,” calling on his fighters to fight to the end and not surrender to the authorities.
On Monday, Pakistani officials negotiating the release of the hostages claimed that the militants were demanding safe passage to Afghanistan. The militants reportedly demanded that the hostages be taken with them to the Afghan border, where they would supposedly release them.
Terrorists Take Hostages in Pakistani Border Province
At least two Pakistani officials were killed when TTP fighters stormed the police station on Sunday, marking the beginning of the hostage situation.
Security officials have positioned themselves around the police station, which is located in a heavily fortified cantonment area of the town.
The hostage crisis arose after the TTP, whose stated aim is to establish Islamic law (Sharia) across all of Pakistan, called off the ceasefire with Islamabad last month.
The ceasefire had been in place since June, but the TTP accused the Pakistani security agencies of resuming operations against its fighters, thus calling for an end to the agreement.
The Taliban, which came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, was mediating peace talks between the TTP and the Pakistani government.
At the same time, Islamabad accused Kabul of backing terrorists on its soil, a claim rejected vigorously by the Taliban. At the time of signing the peace deal with Washington in February 2020, the group vowed not to support terrorist activities in the region.
The UN Security Council previously stated that the leadership of the TTP was allegedly based in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.
*under UN sanctions
** banned in Russia