Pakistan recovers 8 out of 16 mine workers abducted by militants
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani security forces recovered at least eight out of 16 mine workers who were kidnapped by militants in the country’s restive northwest Thursday morning, police and two security officials said.
The operation was launched hours after insurgents ambushed and attacked the workers’ vehicle in a narrow road in Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, police officer Mohammad Ijaz said.
The attack occurred as the men were traveling from Lakki Marwat to a nearby mining project, Ijaz said. He gave no further details.
Other security officials said the mining project where the men worked is related to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, though the abducted workers are not its employees. They said an operation is still underway to recover the remaining workers.
It was unclear whether those insurgents holding the men suffered casualties.
No one from the commission was immediately available for comment.
The latest development comes after militants sent a video to journalists, showing some of the abducted laborers. In the video, one of the men was seen urging authorities to accept the kidnappers’ demands for their release, but it was unclear what those demands were.
There was no immediate claim for the abduction, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, which have stepped up attacks on security forces and civilians in recent months.
The latest attack came a day after dozens of armed Baloch separatists seized a government office, robbed a bank and partially burned a police station in a remote district in southwestern Pakistan before fleeing when security forces arrived, police said Thursday.
The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday in Khuzdar in Balochistan, where analysts say separatists are becoming as large a threat to national security as the Pakistani Taliban.
Suhail Khalid, a local police officer, said the insurgents fled when security forces arrived and the situation was under control.
In recent months, Balochistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have experienced a surge in militant violence, most blamed on the Baloch army and the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban is an ally of the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021. The Afghan Taliban’s takeover has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban, whose leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but also least populated province. It is the home of the country’s ethnic Baloch minority, who say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.
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Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD
Associated Press
