Taliban militants armed with rockets, grenades and automatic weapons abducted at least 400 students, staff and relatives driving away from a boy's school in a northwest Pakistani tribal region on Monday, police and a witness said. The brazen abduction came amid rising militant violence in Pakistan's tribal belt - actions the military says are partly aimed at distracting it from its offensive against the Taliban in the nearby Swat Valley.
Police were negotiating with the Taliban for the release of the captives taken in North Waziristan, said Mirza Mohammad Jihadi, an adviser to the prime minister. He said around 500 people were taken and that they were being held in the Bakka Khel area.
Details were still emerging late Monday about what happened, and much was murky.
"It is a very worrying situation," a senior government official told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari on condition of anonymity. "Exactly how such a large number of students and their co-travelers were picked up in this way is not clear but the fear is that they have all been kidnapped," said the official.
News of the kidnapping comes as Pakistani military troops battle Taliban militants in the northern Swat valley, reports Bokhari. The military campaign in Swat is believed to have so far claimed the lives of up to 2,000 Taliban militants while the Pakistani military has lost nearly 100 of its own.
Police official Meer Sardar said the abduction occurred about 20 miles from Razmak Cadet College in North Waziristan. The people were leaving the school area after they were warned to get out in a phone call from a man they believed to be a political official, Sardar said, citing accounts from a group of 17 who managed to get away.
Local media, however, reported that the group was leaving because their vacation had started.
Around 30 buses, cars and other vehicles were carrying the students, staff and others when they were stopped along the road by a large group of alleged militants in their own vehicles, according to a staff member at the school who was among those who escaped. The vehicle he was traveling in happened to be behind a truck on the road, and it was less visible, so the driver slipped away.
He requested anonymity out of fear of Taliban reprisal but said the school's principal was among those abducted.
The staffer said the assailants carried rockets, Kalashnikovs, hand grenades and other weapons. He estimated around 400 captives were involved.
It was unclear how many were students, though they made up the majority of the group. Cadet colleges in Pakistan are usually run by retired military officers and educate teenagers. They also typically provide room and board.
Late Monday, reports were coming in that at least one other bus managed to get away and reach a police station. Jihadi said at least 29 students escaped, apparently in addition to the 17 at Sardar's police station in the Meeran area.