| Suspected separatist insurgents shot dead five Pakistani government officials nearly two weeks after they were abducted in Balochistan province, police said Tuesday. "The officials were all shot dead. Their bodies were found dumped in a mountainous area" in the town of Chatthar in Baluchistan, local police officer Qasim Seelachi said. Armed men whisked away the victims on August 7. Officials received no ransom demand and police failed to track down the kidnappers, he said. A separatist rebel group, the Balochistan Republican Army, claimed the killings hours after the bodies were recovered. "We killed them because they were government officials," BRA spokesman Sarbaz Baloch said in telephone calls to local media. |