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India-Pakistan
Taliban kidnapping Pakistani Shias for ransom
2009-06-24
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Pakistani Police arrest several Taliban operatives who have been involved in kidnapping of Shia Muslims in order to demand huge ransoms from their family members. Police in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi said Tuesday the men had kidnapped several members of the Shia community at gun point in the hope to receive ransoms for Taliban's notorious commanders in the country's troubled northwest.

"We have arrested five men who were involved in bank robberies and kidnapping of Shiite Muslims to generate funds for Baitullah Mehsud's Taliban militants," police official Raja Umer Khitab said.

The revelation comes after a string of sectarian attacks on Shia Muslims in recent months undermined the already deteriorating security of the insurgency-hit country.

Countless incidents of massacres took place in Dera Ismail Khan and Kurram Agency over the past few months.

This is while the Taliban-linked Wahhabi groups in Parachinar, Hangu district and much of the Kurram tribal agency have embarked on a series of fatal attacks on Shia Muslims.

Some sources say thousands more Shia community members have been killed in the region over the past few years. Shias say they make up one-third of Pakistan's 160 million-strong population.
Posted by:Fred

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