For 22 hours, hostages were trapped inside the headquarters of the Pakistani army before commandos raided the building and set them free from Islamist militants. Three captives and four hostage-takers were killed, as were two of the rescuers, in the raid which ended the standoff. The initial assault, an audacious show of force by fighters with ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban, came ahead of a planned expansion of the Pakistani army's efforts to secure the Afghani border in South Waziristan.
