Pakistan faces hostage crisis

Islamabad: Heavily armed militants took several troops hostage after an audacious assault on Pakistan's army headquarters on Saturday that killed at least 10 people, military officials said.

Wearing military uniforms and wielding assault rifles and grenades, six militants drove in a van to the fortified General Headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

When the van was stopped at a checkpost the attackers opened fire with automatic weapons and also hurled grenades, according to the officials.

"Six security personnel died and four attackers were killed," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told the media. Private channels, quoting military sources, said a brigadier and a colonel were among the dead.

Major General Abbas told state television last night that at least three gunmen were still holding 10 to 15 hostages. No army or intelligence leaders were among those being held, he added.

Building surrounded

"They are holed up in a security office building," he said. "They have taken hostage some of our security forces. The building has been surrounded and appropriate action will be taken."

The incident came a day after a car bomb killed around 50 people and wounded over a hundred in Peshawar. Last Monday, a suicide attack at the UN World Food Programme office in Islamabad killed five.

The military spokesman said the outlawed Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — whose chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in August in South Waziristan tribal area — had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Interior Minister Rehman Malek also linked the attack to Al Qaida and TTP militants entrenched in Waziristan region. Malek said after this incident a military operation in South Waziristan had become all the more urgent.