PESHAWAR, Oct 24: In a major development, militants in Mamoond sub-district of Bajaur Agency have sought two-day time to consider surrender and hand over their leaders to the government, a senior government official said.

“They have approached the administration through elders from the Mamoond tribe to seek peace agreement but we have laid down our policy, telling them clearly that the government will not talk to the militants and that any agreement through the tribal elders will have to include laying down arms, surrender, handing over of their ring leaders and that no guarantees will be furnished by the government for their release,” the official said.

He said the militants in their stronghold of Mamoond were desperately trying to reach some sort of agreement with the government and had sent a jirga to the administration to kick-start negotiations.

Mamoond area is stronghold of militants in the region and their main leadership, including Tehrik-i-Taliban deputy chief Maulavi Faqir Mohammad and others, come from the same area.

Mamoond tribe is reluctant to raise a lashkar against militants and has been dragging its feet on the government’s attempts to make them emulate the Salarzai tribe to flush out militants from the area.

“The Mamoonds were reluctant and were playing games with us until now,” the official said.

The dramatic change, according to another official, came after the government began pounding suspected militants’ positions inside Mamoond territory with artillery, helicopter gunships and jet fighters.

“The jirga went back and laid down the government’s pre-condition and ironically the Taliban did not say ‘no’, promising to discuss this among themselves and sought two-day time,” the official said.

The official said that jets used heavy bombs to bust bunkers in Mamoond and, according to unconfirmed reports, in one of the hits on a cave-bunker three days ago, a senior figure was among those killed. The military put the death toll at 35.

“One of the bombs hit the mouth of the cave-tunnel, causing it to collapse. Then we used artillery to keep militants from retrieving the bodies. We believe that a senior figure is amongst those killed. One report suggested the dead men included their spokesman but we have no confirmation of that,” the official said.

Militants, however, deny that the dead included their spokesman.

“He is alive and is somewhere far from here”, a man who picked up the spokesman’s phone said.

Reports of Maulavi Faqir Mohammad’s death in an air strike had also been in circulation for some time early last month, but the TTP leader later debunked all such reports by speaking to reporters from an undisclosed location.