A large number of paramilitary soldiers went missing in
Pakistan's northwestern tribal area on Thursday, local TV channels
reported.
The Aaj TV channel reported that 110 paramilitary soldiers from
Frontier Corps were traveling in 18 vehicles when armed men
kidnapped them in South Waziristan. The soldiers were going from
Wana, the center of South Waziristan, to Ladha, a town in the
region on Thursday afternoon.
Another TV channel Geo reported that the militants snatched arms
from scores of soldiers and held them hostage.
"Some groups have not reached at their destinations but they can
not be called as missing," the army spokesman Major General Waheed
Arshad said, adding that the army was trying to check where they
are.
Arshad said that the weather in the region was bad and there was
possibility that they had camped somewhere. He said he did not know
about the exact figures of the soldiers who had not reached at
their destinations.
It was the third incident of kidnapping of soldiers in less than
a month in the same region. Local militants kidnapped 20 security
men in two groups this month and beheaded one of them. The
remaining 19 were freed this week after tribal elders held series
of talks with the kidnappers.
The security situation in the Waziristan tribal area bordering
Afghanistan deteriorated since local militants in North Waziristan
on July 15 scrapped a peace deal signed with the government in
September last year.
The militants continually launched attacks on security forces
and triggered clashes that left more than 250 militants and 60
security men dead since early July.
(Xinhua News Agency August 31, 2007)
