Militants take villagers hostage in Pakistan

LAHORE: A Pakistani police officer inspects the attack site at the police hostel in Lahore yesterday. Gunmen shot dead nine Pakistani police and prison staff as they slept, the second attack on security forces in the country’s political heartland since Islamabad reopened a NATO supply corridor. —AFP

KHAR: Pakistani officials say dozens of militants coming from Afghanistan  attacked a village in the country’s northwest and took scores of villagers hostage. Government official Tariq Khan says the militants appeared to be targeting members of an anti-Taleban  militia in Kitkot village near Pakistan’s Bajur tribal area.

The militants came from Afghanistan’s Kunar province yesterday and took hundreds of villagers hostage, including members of the militia. Khan says the Pakistani army surrounded the village and killed eight militants. The insurgents responded by killing two militiamen.

Khan and two security officials say soldiers have retrieved scores of villagers, but dozens more are still held by the militants or trapped in their homes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Taleban  gunmen opened fire on a compound housing policemen in eastern Pakistan yesterday, killing nine of them, officials said. The police who were targeted in the city of Lahore were training to become prison guards, said Habibur Rehman, the chief of police in Punjab province, where Lahore is the capital.

Pakistani Taleban  spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for the police torture of their fighters in prison. He spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The police who were attacked were recruited from northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a one-time base for the Taleban , and were brought to Lahore for training, said Rehman. Eight policemen also suffered bullet wounds, said Salman Saddiq, a government official. One of the wounded, Shafqat Imran, said that eight to 10 attackers, their faces hidden behind
hoods, stormed into the compound and started shooting randomly. They shouted “God is great,” then shot the policemen one by one, said Imran, speaking from a hospital bed. The Pakistani military launched a massive offensive against the Taleban  in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat Valley in 2009, and many militants were captured and imprisoned.

Police said they suspect the gunmen who attacked the housing compound were the same ones who killed seven soldiers and a policeman at an army camp Monday about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Lahore. The Pakistani Taleban  claimed responsibility for that attack as well. The Pakistani Taleban  have waged a blood insurgency against the government over the past few years, demanding it break ties with the United States and establish Islamic law throughout the country. The militants have killed thousands of soldiers, police and civilians in attacks.-AP

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