Militants take 400 hostages

[Rajkumar]

congrats to brave soldiers of pak army.
i am little bit confused, earlier news stated 400 people and last news say 80 rescued. what is clear picture,please fill me up.

 

[ajpirzada]

i have got a confusion..
400 were kidnapped but only 80 recovered. wat about the rest of them?

 

[arslan_treen]

thanks god for this successful operation as there was a fierce gun battle between security forces and terrorists ,but fortunately none of the students of Security personal were seriously injured ,what happened to the terrorists is still unknown .

 

[arslan_treen]

^^ 400 were not kidnapped but 400 were traveling in a convoy of 25 vehicles when the taliban attacked and abducted in total 80 people rest were able to flee and reached banu safely and alarmed the authorities ,whole of the area was then sealed up by army and check posts were mounted on all the leading roads and paths from N W to S W ,this payed up as terrorists tried to move the kids from N W to S W and were intercepted by FC Commandos and Pakistan army and the security forces were able to rescue all the abducted as comfirmed by the ISPR and GOP .

 

[Lockheed F-16]

Cadets after they got free on their way back home

 

[Rajkumar]

my confusion keep on increasing here.As news stated fierce gun battle broke out among security forces and militants but no cadet harmed,how?why didn't Taliban use them as shields or Taliban have some rule in killing children[i am just curious should not be taken otherwise].

 

[fatman17]

Pakistani army rescues kidnapped students

Analyst warns war against Talibans in Pakistan is far from over

AFP By Zeeshan Haider Zeeshan Haider – 43 mins ago

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani soldiers Tuesday rescued scores of students and staff from a military-run college who were abducted by Taliban militants in the northwest of the country, a military spokesman said.

The abduction took place Monday as the Pakistani army pressed on with an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, in another part of the northwest.

Separately, a high court ordered the release of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of an outlawed militant group which was accused of organizing an assault on the Indian city of Mumbai in November, his lawyer said.

India, which urged nuclear-armed rival Pakistan "dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism" after the Mumbai attacks killed 166 people, said it was "unhappy" with Saeed's release.

It is also likely to dismay the United States which has been alarmed by deteriorating security in an ally whose help it needs to defeat al Qaeda and subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said the Taliban were taking the kidnapped students to the South Waziristan region, a militant stronghold on the Afghan border, when soldiers challenged them on a road and a clash erupted.

"Under cover of the firing the militants escaped and we have recovered them all," Abbas said, adding 71 students and nine members of staff had been rescued.

College principal Javed Iqbal Piracha, who was among those rescued, said 10 to 15 students appeared to be still missing.

Taliban fighters seized the students' convoy heading home for the summer holiday near the Afghan border in North Waziristan.

There are several Taliban- and al-Qaeda-linked groups based in North and South Waziristan in a loose alliance with the Taliban in Swat. South Waziristan is also the base of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

While the military has not announced any plans for an offensive after Swat is secured, officials have said a South Waziristan operation looked inevitable.

Brigadier Zahid Abdullah, who led the rescue and said he believed everyone had been recovered, said the militants might have wanted to use the students as human shields.

APPEAL FOR FUNDS

Pakistan launched an offensive against a growing Taliban insurgency in the Swat valley, 120 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, a month ago, sparking a flood of fleeing civilians.

Officials say an estimated 2.4 million people have been displaced by the conflict, prompting U.N. warnings of a humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations appealed for $543 million last week but just over a fifth has been funded. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged countries to scale up their response.

The United States has welcomed the offensive in Swat but a protracted humanitarian crisis could undermine Pakistani public support for the fight against the Islamist militants. The United States has offered $110 million in aid for the displaced.

Saeed, the Islamist ordered released, was put under house arrest in early December after a U.N. Security Council committee added him and a charity he heads to a list of people and organizations linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

His lawyer, A.K. Dogar, told reporters the Lahore High Court had ruled his detention illegal.

Saeed founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group in 1990 and for years it battled Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region. The group was banned in Pakistan in 2002.

Saeed heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, which the United Nations said in December was a front for the LeT.

India says the Mumbai assault was carried out by LeT militants who must have had backing from some Pakistani agencies.

Pakistan has acknowledged the attack was launched and partly planned from Pakistan, and the surviving attacker was Pakistani.

Asked about Saeed's release, Indian Home (interior) Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said India was unhappy and Pakistan was not serious about investigating the Mumbai attack.

Pakistan has lodged police complaints against eight suspects but Saeed was not among them.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Bappa Majumdar in New Delhi, Zeeshan Haider, Augustine Anthony; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by David Fox)

 

[fhassan]

Salaam

Nice to see American and Indian members expressing support for pakistan and it's people.

God be with you all.

 

[ajpirzada]

my confusion keep on increasing here.As news stated fierce gun battle broke out among security forces and militants but no cadet harmed,how?why didn't Taliban use them as shields or Taliban have some rule in killing children[i am just curious should not be taken otherwise].

that is the reason y we lik to keep contacts with such ppl through ISI. see how easy it was. no one got killed or injured and we managed to free the hostages

on a serious note one can say that may be they were few in number and decided to run away when they saw security forces. TTP is an umbrella organisation and therefore not all of them are suicidal. neither are many of them ideological. so who knows which group was involved

 

[HAIDER]

Sounds like militant did some math, before few release. 400 plus with their immediate families and relative will be potential enemies of these militant. These are all local people and know who is behind this.

 

[Coolyo]

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Army recovers 79 kidnapped students from militants

ISLAMABAD: All except one of the kidnapped students and staff members of Cadet College Razmak were recovered in a military operation, the Inter Services Public Relations said on Tuesday.

A statement released by the ISPR said that 79 kidnap victims, including cadets and staff members were recovered after a military operation.

‘All the cadets except one have been recovered in an army operation this morning at 5 a.m.,’ said military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas.

The operation was carried out in Guryum area, nearly 20 kilometres east of Razmak, where the college is located.

According to Maj. Gen. Abbas, Razmak lies on the route to South Waziristan, where militant still have a stronghold, where the militants were planning to take the kidnapped students. Abbas added that the military anticipated this plan of action and launched an operation on the route leading to South Waziristan.

The resulting firefight helped army overcome the militants and recover the students, he told DawnNews.

Abbas said that the military is not carrying out an offensive operation in South Waziristan and is only preparing for any attacks from the militants in the area, where military convoys have come under attacks.

Earlier on Monday, conflicting reports came in about the number of kidnap victims with most news agencies reporting the figure to be 500.

Militants kidnapped the students of Razmak Cadet College from the Bakkakhel Frontier Region, Bannu, adjacent to the North Waziristan tribal region.

Details were sketchy but the official said that 33 vehicles had started off from Razmak, with 540 cadets, teaching staff and their families after the principal of the college ordered its closure amid apprehensions about an impending military operation against militants.

‘The vehicles were waylaid by armed militants in the Bakkakhel area and commandeered towards Marwat Canal,’ the official said.

Police said that some women and children were later freed. But, the militants carrying rockets, grenades and automatic machine guns boarded the vehicles and commandeered them to some unspecified place.

Another coach, carrying 17 people, including 10 students, a librarian and a doctor, managed to reach the Miryan police station in Bannu. They were later escorted to the Cantonment police station for their onward journey to their destinations, the police official said.

‘The Taliban are behind the kidnapping,’ Mir Sardar, Assistant Sub-Inspector of the Miryan police station, told The New York Times by phone from Bannu.

Marwat Canal leads to South Waziristan’s Spinkay, through Frontier Region Tank, linked up by a nullah frequently used by militants to bypass security checkposts.

Gul Bahadur, leader of the Ittehad-i-Shura Mujahideen, North Waziristan, has wide influence in Bakkakhel and some officials believe that the kidnapping could not have taken place without his blessing.

‘He thinks that he can hoodwink us by escorting these students and teachers to fulfil his commitment not to harm them in his area of influence and then have them kidnapped from Bakkakhel. But we all know whose people operate in Bakkakhel,’ the official said.

The number of those kidnapped varied, but one official put the figure at close to 518, including cadets and members of the teaching staff.

District Police Officer of Bannu Iqbal Marwat, however, said that 67 cadets had managed to reach the police, while over 400 were missing.

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[white_pawn]

Forces rescue 71 kidnapped cadets, nine staff members ​

ISHFAQULLAH SHAWL

ISLAMABAD (updated on: June 03, 2009, 03:22 PST): The security forces have got freed 71 kidnapped cadets and nine staff members of Razmak Cadet College from Ghariom, North Waziristan Agency. According to a spokesman of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the security forces received an information that the hijacked coaches of cadets had been brought at Khajori, North Waziristan. As such, the forces blocked all the exit routes.

At Ghariom checkpost, 20 kilometres South West of Razmak, when the terrorists were trying to shift the kidnapped cadets to South Waziristan Agency, they were challenged. As a result, an encounter took place in which terrorists fled from the area, leaving the kidnapped personnel behind. All the freed cadets, including staff, have been shifted to Bannu by Army helicopters, said the spokesman.

Meanwhile, in the "Operation Rah e Raast," the security forces killed 21 terrorists and arrested 18 during the last 24 hours in Swat, while three soldiers were martyred and six injured. With return of to Mingora, supply of food items, medicines and other essential commodities along with utilities to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) have started.

Besides, the IDPs had also started returning to their homes, said the spokesman. The spokesman said that the security forces launched a massive search operation in Charbagh. He said that they had cleared the forests of Jerki and Sirsanai in Charbagh after fierce battle with the terrorists, while forces were facing stern resistance in Charbagh area where a security man was martyred and four others injured during the gun-battle with the terrorists.

The forces had successfully secured Alam Gunj, Waliabad and Gulibagh (north of Charbagh). Fourteen terrorists were killed and 18 were apprehended in Charbagh and Alam Gunj areas, he added. Forces commenced operation at Kot and cleared Khairabad, Sarsanai checkpost. Two terrorists were also killed there in exchange of fire, he said.

The security forces have recovered arms and ammunition during a search and destroyed terrorists hideouts in Mandi Banda area of Peochar valley. Two security forces personnel have been martyred during an exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists, while two were injured. Five terrorists were killed in the operation, he said, adding that the terrorists fired two mortar shells at Runial and Dang Arkot Qila resultantly three children were injured.

He said that the army, in co-ordination with the civil administration, had so far distributed 22 trucks loaded with rations among the stranded people in Mingora, while the army had so far distributed 778 tons of relief and food items among the IDPs of Swat. He said that five trucks, carrying 25 tons of rations, were dispatched for the stranded people of Khawzakhela and five trucks for Kalam.