| Pakistan''s top paramilitary commander Frontier Corps chief Major General Saleem Nawaz on Thursday accused an exiled Baluch nationalist leader in Afghanistan of masterminding this month''s abduction of an American UN official. John Solecki, head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) office in the southwestern city of Quetta, was snatched at gunpoint while travelling to work on February 2. His driver was killed during the abduction. It was the most high-profile Western kidnapping in Pakistan since 2002, when US journalist Daniel Pearl was snatched and beheaded by Al-Qaeda militants. A rebel group, the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF), had claimed responsibility for kidnapping Solecki, demanding the release of Baluch women in government custody and information about 6,000 "missing" men. "Brahamdagh Bugti, who is living in Afghanistan, is involved in the abduction of John Solecki," Frontier Corps chief Major General Saleem Nawaz told reporters in Quetta. Brahamdagh, who heads the rebel Baluchistan Republican Party, is a grandson of nationalist leader Akbar Bugti, who was killed during a Pakistan military operation in the insurgency-racked southwest province in 2006. "Brahamdagh is also involved in other terrorist activities in Baluchistan in collusion with a foreign hand," he said -- hinting at India. "In fact, BLUF does not exist," Nawaz said. |