Suspected militants have released 50 people kidnapped on Saturday in Pakistan’s restive northwest, a government official said yesterday.
Gunmen dressed as policemen kidnapped at least 60 people in two incidents in the ethnic Pashtun tribal region of Kurram, where government forces have recently stepped up an anti-militant operation.
Negotiations involving tribal elders were underway for the release of the remaining 10 hostages, believed to be employees of the state power company, regional government official Mumtaz Khan said.
“Militants seem reluctant to free them because they are government employees, but we are making all our efforts and we have engaged tribal elders in the process,” Khan said.
Pakistani government officials have accused Pakistani Taliban militants of carrying out kidnappings after coming under pressure from security crackdowns in Kurrum and other areas.
Taliban officials were not immediately available for comment.
Some kidnappings in the region were believed to have been carried out by tribes. Hameedullah Khan, a tribal elder, had a different account of what happened with the hostages, saying militants released 40, while 10 escaped. He was optimistic those still being held would be freed.
“The 10 men do not have identity cards so the Taliban are just holding them to verify their identity. It’s not a big deal,” Khan said.
In a video message last week, Pakistan’s Taliban warned the US it will soon “burn” while calling for Pakistan’s rulers to be overthrown for following “America’s agenda.”
Washington is convinced Pakistani Taliban militants allied with al-Qaeda and operating out of northwestern Pakistani border regions were behind an attempted car-bomb attack in New York’s Times Square on May 1.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing. If confirmed, it would be the first time their members were involved in an attempted attack in the West.
Pakistan has mounted military offensives against militants in their strongholds in the northwest over the past year, largely clearing several areas, killing hundreds of militants and destroying their bases, government officials said.
Militants have shown resilience and carried out a wave of suicide and bomb attacks, mainly in the northwest, killing hundreds of people.
Pakistani fighter jets bombed two Taliban hideouts yesterday in Orakzai region, near Kurram, killing 15 militants, a government official said.
There was no independent confirmation of those figures. Taliban militants often dismiss official casualty figures.
Meanwhile, a suspected US missile strike killed at least five people in the Khyber tribal region of northwest Pakistan on Saturday, in what would be one of the first such attacks in the area, intelligence and government officials said.
Officials gave differing death tolls in the strike, which one said involved two missiles hitting a house and two trucks loaded with militants. The death toll ranged from five to 15. Such discrepancies are common and are rarely reconciled.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Much of the supplies for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are transported through the region and the convoys have often been attacked. The US does not officially acknowledge firing the missiles.
Associated Press reports on past strikes do not show any in the Khyber region. Almost all of the more than 30 missile attacks this year have hit targets in the Waziristan tribal region. Khyber is also a militant hotspot that has seen several Pakistani military operations over the last year.
Pakistan officially protests the missile strikes on its territory, but it is believed to aid at least some of them.
Critics say the attacks, which are from unmanned drones, may violate international law and amount to extrajudicial killings.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS