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| India-Pakistan | |
| Pakistani tribal elders in talks with Taliban to free abductees | |
| 2011-09-05 | |
| [Dawn] Pak tribal elders are holding talks with Talibs in Afghanistan for the release of scores of young rustics kidnapped during an outing along the border, officials said on Sunday. The teenage rustics from Pakistain's northwestern Bajaur tribal region were kidnapped by the beturbanned goons on Thursday while they were on an outing in Afghanistan's border province of Kunar on the Mohammedan festival of Eid.
"The future course of action will be decided by tribal elders from both sides of the border." Pak government officials had initially said around 60 boys from the ethnic Pashtun Mamoun tribe took part in the outing. But about 20 below ten years were allowed to return to Pakistain, while up to 40 others between 12 to 14 years old were held. Abbas said in total 40 young rustics were kidnapped. He said 10 of the boys were released while 30 were still in jug. Under centuries-old tribal customs, rustics living along the frontier can freely move across the border. A front man for Pak Taliban, many of whom have decamped into Afghanistan in the face of Pakistain military offensives in Bajaur, on Saturday grabbed credit for the kidnappings as punishment against the tribe for supporting the military. The Taliban front man Ehsanullah Ehsan said they had a plan of mass-scale kidnappings and expected people in large number to visit the border region on Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramazan. Sultan Zeb, a tribal elder in Bajaur, said beturbanned goons loyal to Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, the top Taliban capo in Bajaur who Pak authorities say has also decamped to Afghanistan, were involved in the kidnapping. "We have established contact with the Taliban through their relatives and friends and we hope they will release the kidnapped people very soon. The kidnappers have not made demand for ransom or any other demand for the release," he told Rooters by telephone from Bajaur. The Mamoun tribe is opposed to al Qaeda and Taliban and has raised militias to fight them, angering beturbanned goons who often hit back with bombings and shooting attacks. Pakistain late last month lodged a protest with the Afghan government after officials said hundreds of beturbanned goons from Afghanistan launched a raid on Pak border posts in northwestern Chitral district, killing up to 36 people, most of them soldiers. Twenty-seven Pak servicemen and 45 beturbanned goons died in festivities in July when some 600 beturbanned goons from Afghanistan attacked Pak border villages. | |
| Posted by:Fred |