Taliban claims kidnap of 30 Pakistanis
KHAR , Pakistan, Sept 3, AFP
Pakistani Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for the kidnap
of more than 30 young people who had mistakenly crossed the border from
the country’s lawless northwest into Afghanistan. A spokesman for
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) said those kidnapped were not boys as
reported by Pakistani officials but aged between 20 and 30, adding their
fate would be decided by the central leadership of the organisation.
“We have kidnapped them. These people are with us, they are not kids
but young people of ages between 20 to 30,” Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah
Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“These people belong to the areas where tribesmen rose militias
against TTP. We will thoroughly investigate about them and then our
central leadership will decide their fate,” Ehsan said. Pakistani
officials had said the incident took place on Thursday after a group of
boys, aged between 12 and 18, left the Gharkhi area of Pakistan’s Bajaur
tribal region during celebrations marking the Muslim Eid holiday.
Bajaur administration official Islam Zeb said Friday the boys had
been abducted by a militant group allied with Taliban commander Maulvi
Faqir Muhammad, who led local insurgents but is believed to have fled to
Afghanistan in 2010.
Zeb told AFP on Saturday that a delegation of Pakistani tribesmen is
negotiating with the tribal elders in Afghanistan “to put pressure on
the kidnappers to set them free,”.
“We are trying our best to seek their release. A tribal Jirga has
been sent to Kunar for negotiations,” Zeb said. Afghan border police
commander General Aminullah Amarkhel, the governor of Kunar, where the
boys vanished, Fazlullah Wahidi, and the local Afghan Taliban commander
all told AFP on Friday they were unaware of the incident.
Afghanistan shares a disputed and unmarked 2,400-kilometre
(1,500-mile) border with Pakistan, and Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked
militants have carved out strongholds on either side. The Pakistani
military has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated the militant threat
in Bajaur, one of seven districts in the semi-autonomous tribal belt
that the United States sees as the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.
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