Suspected Talibs in Afghanistan have kidnapped as many as 40 Pak boys after they inadvertently strayed across the border, Pak officials said on Friday.The boys, from the town of Mamoun in the Pashtun tribal region of Bajaur, were trekking when they ended up in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the officials said.
"Now, they are being held by forces of Evil across the border," Pakistain government official Muhammad Haseeb Khan told Rooters.
It was not possible to verify the claim.
Two local intelligence officials said that the kidnappers were apparently from a Death Eater group allied with Taliban capo Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, who led cut-throats in Bajaur but is believed to have decamped to Afghanistan in 2010.
"The kidnappers were Talibs, belonging to Maulvi Faqir Muhammad group," one official said, on condition of anonymity.
Another Pak administration official speaking anonymously said security forces were stretched thin along parts of the frontier.
"It is a mostly non-existent border and security cover is not available everywhere," he said.
Security officials said they learned of the kidnappings when parents of the children, members of a tribe that inhabits the frontier area, informed them of the abductions on Friday.
They said about 20 boys below ten years old in the group were allowed to return to Pakistain, But boys between 12 to 14 years old were held. About 60 children took part in the outing.
Tribal elders and holy mans were trying to negotiate with the forces of Evil to secure their release, officials said.
However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
Afghan border police commander General Aminullah Amarkhel said he had no knowledge of the abduction, and the local Taliban capo in Kunar province,
... which is right down the road from Chitral...
where the boys vanished, also said he was unaware of the incident.
Afghanistan shares a disputed and unmarked 2,400-kilometre (1,500-mile) border with Pakistain, and Taliban and other al Qaeda-linked forces of Evil have carved out strongholds on either side.
Bajaur is opposite the eastern Afghan province of Kunar and has long been an infiltration route for forces of Evil entering Afghanistan to fight US-led forces there.
Tribesmen from Mamoun are opposed to al Qaeda and the Taliban and have raised militias to fight them, angering forces of Evil who often hit back with bombings and shooting attacks.
The Pak military has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated the Death Eater threat in Bajaur, one of seven districts in the semi-autonomous tribal belt that the United States sees as the global headquarters of al Qaeda.