Pakistani authorities on Monday opened talks to try to resolve a stand-off with Islamist militants who were holding several security personnel hostage after seizing control of a counter-terrorism facility in the country's northwest a day earlier.
Security forces have surrounded the highly-fortified military cantonment that houses the interrogation centre in the town of Bannu, where around 20 fighters from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - an umbrella group of Islamist and sectarian groups - are holed up.
