Pakistani Taliban rejects call for unconditional ceasefire

The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has rejected the Nawaz Sharif government's call for an unconditional ceasefire, a media report said.

"If this is what we have to do, we would have done it 10 years ago," the Dawn Wednesday quoted TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid as saying Tuesday.

"It is the government which has waged a war against us and it is for the government to end it now. Let the government hold fire and we shall follow suit," he told the newspaper.

Shahidullah also blamed intelligence agencies for Monday's killing of TTP's senior commander Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani.He said Shaheen Bhittani had been on the hit list of Pakistani intelligence agencies.

The TTP spokesman added that there had been a few other incidents of killing of its commanders and his organisation suspected them to be the handiwork of Pakistani intelligence agencies. "This is a drone's alternative. Now we are being hunted through ground drones," he said.