21 Iranian hostages freed in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: Pakistani troops on Monday in a pre-dawn raid freed 21 people who were kidnapped by militants in southeastern Iran and then whisked over the border, security officials said.

Troops freed the 21 hostages, all Iranians, who were captured on Sunday in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province in a town close to the border, killing the leader of the kidnap gang and arresting the others.

Pakistani authorities began handing over the freed hostages at an airbase near here late Monday.

“The 21 recovered abductees are being handed over to Iranian officials and they are fulfilling formalities at an airbase near Quetta,” said the head of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps, Major General Salim Nawaz.

Nawaz told reporters the gang leader Sher Khan had been killed in the dawn raid by Pakistani security forces that freed the hostages.

Two other kidnappers were wounded in the assault, he said.

The hostages, all Iranians, were abducted on Sunday in Iran’s neighbouring Sistan-Baluchestan province.

A Pakistani security source said earlier that troops surrounded the group in Mand, a mountainous town 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the Iranian border and “overpowered them” to release the hostages.

The group was flown by helicopter to Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

Earlier Monday, confusion reigned over the number of hostages kidnapped, but police officials on both sides of the border confirmed that 21 people had been abducted.

“We have arrested 17 people and secured the release of 21 captives,” the official added.

Iran’s police chief Esmaeeli Ahmadi Moghaddam said that two militants had been killed in the Pakistani police operation and 15 others arrested. He also renewed past Iranian accusations against Pakistan that the Islamabad government was not doing enough to ensure security along the common border.

“The Pakistani government has concentrated more on the Indian and Pakistan border and considers this border with Iran to be secure. This is why this border has become a sanctuary for the bandits from Iran,” he said.

Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, is known for attacks by militants on passing traffic, especially on roads in its remote eastern corner.

Iranian police had said the hostages were taken by the Jundallah (Soldiers of God) rebel group — led by Abdolmalek Rigi — which has claimed a string of attacks and kidnappings in the province.

Sistan-Baluchestan is home to a substantial Sunni ethnic Baluch community. Thirteen members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards were killed in a militant bomb attack in February in the provincial capital Zahedan, the deadliest such strike in Iran in recent years.

Iran subsequently summoned Pakistan’s ambassador to complain about border security. Both sides agreed to reinforce their efforts.

Iran has also accused the United States and its Western allies of seeking to stir unrest in Sistan-Baluchestan and other sensitive border provinces.

Two Belgian tourists were abducted by bandits in the same region last week. The female captive has been released but the man is still being held.

Stefaan Boeve, 28, and his companion Carla Van den Eeckhout, 37, were seized while they were travelling on a road notorious for attacks on travellers between Bam and Zahedan.

Islamabad, Tuesday, AFP.