A group of heavily armed Islamic militants entered a high school in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, in the district of Bannu on Monday and took up to 250 children hostage, the interior minister said.

“About seven terrorists have taken the school children hostage. There about 200 to 250 children. The terrorists are demanding safe passage; the provincial government is in negotiations with them. We hope that the matter will be resolved peacefully,” Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told AFP.

Police have surrounded the school. Tribal elders are trying to negotiate the release of the hostages. Parents and relatives of the children have also gathered outside the school hoping to see their children very soon.

The children are mostly aged between eight and 12. There were also several teachers who had been detained, local police reported.

The militants “have all types of weapons like rocket launchers and grenades,” district police Chief Dar Ali Khattak warned.
Local police said the militants had taken the school after abducting a health worker. Their chase ended with the killing of one militant, while a policeman was injured. The health worker succeeded to escape, police official Shakirullah, who goes by one name only, told AFP.

The hostage drama is the first of its nature in the ongoing conflict between Islamic extremists and the government of President Pervez Musharraf, who is currently traveling through Europe seeking to allay fears about Pakistan’s security. He appeared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and is to meet the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, in London today.

Last October at least 15 people were killed in Bannu twon by a suicide bomber dressed in a burka.