ISLAMABAD: Dec 20,2022: Defence minister , Khawaja Asif , on Tuesday said on the floor of the national assembly that a special unit of Special Services Group(SSG) of the armed forces has carried out an operation and killed all thr terrorists who had taken over a centre of Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Bannu and made the employees hostage .
The defence minister in his statement given on the national assembly floor said Pakistan army had ordered a SSG unit to conduct an operation to clean up the CTD centre in Bannu of the terrorists who had taken over the centre and made its employees hostage .
Khawaja Asif said 10 to 15 SSG commandos have injured in operation clean up that started at around 12.30 PM on Tuesday and two martyred in the fight. The operation completed at 2.30 PM, he maintained.
He said ” The brave SSG commandos killed all the terrorists and cleared CTD centre Bannu of them and this nation salutes these sons of the soil”.
He added that 33 terrorists belonging to Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were detained at CTD centre Bannu and during a routine round one of the terrorists snatched a gun from a CTD employee and made other terrorists to takeover the CTD centre besides making its employees hostage.
He said the rise of terrorism and CTD Bannu centre incident was a complete failure of Khyber Pukhtunkhaw (KPK) government.
He slammed Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf PTI) chairman , Imran Khan, who, he said, was enjoying KPK resources, but his chief minister in the province and his provincial government was totally oblivious to rising terrorists’ activities in KPK.
On Saturday , as many as 33 terrorists who were detained at CTD centre had taken over it and made its employees hostage . Since then the situation in the area was extremely serious. The armed terrorists released a number of videos wherein they showed CTD employees made hostage in the centre. The terrorists could also be seen in different videos released by them roaming around with guns in their hands and taking positions in the CTD centre .
The terrorists have also released some videos asking ulema and elders of the area to negotiate peaceful way of ending their stand -off with the law enforcing agencies. The terrorists’s act of taking control of CTD centre and making the CTD employees hostage had directly challenged Pakistan’s law enforcing agencies’ power.
The matter had become so grave that the State Department of the United State (US) had announced to offer to help Pakistan to tackle with terrorists’ takeover in Bannu.
By conducting an SSG operation and killing the terrorists in the CTD centre , Pakistan has given a loud and clear message to the world that it was capable enough to crush monster of terror no matter how well organised or big it is.
Its also gave a message to TTP that its terrorists will not get any safe passage to go to Afghanistan after having terrorist activities like they did at CTD centre in Bannu. Rather , message for TTP is that its terrorists who will dare to confront Pakistan will be eliminated at any cost.