Four People, Among Them An Army Commander, Were Abducted in Northwest Pakistan.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Four people, including an army officer who was sitting in a mosque in a former Taliban stronghold in Pakistan to greet mourners after attending his father’s funeral, were abducted by suspected militants, according to officials on Thursday.
The kidnapping of Lt. Col. Khalid Khan and three others on Wednesday in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in the northwest Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has gone unreported.
According to local authorities, a video of Khan showing him being held captive by the Pakistani Taliban was delivered to his family under false pretenses. Khan may be seen in the video sitting in front of armed men and pleading with the administration to grant the Pakistani Taliban’s requests. What exactly they were demanding remained unknown.
Neither the administration nor the military responded right away.
Ikram Ullah, a local police official, stated that attempts were being made to locate and rescue Khan, his two brothers who are also government employees, and one of his nephews who had been kidnapped.
Such kidnappings are uncommon, despite the Pakistani Taliban’s frequent targeting of security troops in the northwest.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, is the name of the group that is well-known in the unstable northwest. It is affiliated with the Afghan Taliban but not part of it; since the Afghan Taliban took over in 2021, it has gained confidence.
Days prior to the kidnappings, TTP-allied Baloch rebels shot and killed over 50 people, including 14 members of the security services, in one of the worst attacks in the province of Southwest Balochistan.
According to sources, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, on Thursday and was briefed about the state of operations against insurgents.
In his broadcast statements, Sharif promised to eradicate terrorism, declaring that the “terrorists” behind the latest attacks in Balochistan are Pakistan’s foes and will face harsh punishment.
