Taliban demand envoy swap for Dadullah

ISLAMABAD—Local Taliban who claimed kidnapping of Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan demanded release of Mullah Mansoor Dadullah against release of Pakistani envoy.
Local Taliban admitted that they had kidnapped Pakistani envey to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin and asked the tribal leaders of Khyber Agency to convey their message to Pakistani government that they are ready to free Tariq Azizuddin against the release of Mansoor Dadullah.
Mansoor Dadullah was arrested yesterday in Balochistan along with his aides in wounded state. Pakistan officials have been making all efforts to trace the ambassador to Afghanistan who went missing on Monday while on his way to Kabul from Peshawar by road. Foreign Office Spokesman Muhammad Sadiq told on Tuesday morning that he could not still confirm or reject the possibility of kidnapping of the ambassador Tariq Azizuddin.
The Spokesman while confirming said, “Efforts are being made at all levels to find the missing ambassador.” Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan’s envoy to Afghanistan was heading to Kabul with his driver and a security guard when they disappeared in the Khyber tribal district, said the foreign office. “He has gone missing, we are confirming he is missing but at this stage we cannot give you any more details,” said the foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq. Authorities searched for the country’s abducted ambassador to Afghanistan and two kidnapped nuclear experts on Tuesday as insecurity mounted ahead of crucial elections next week. The abductions happened on Monday near the country’s rugged northwestern border with Afghanistan, where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants are waging an insurgency against the US-allied government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani envoy, Tariq Azizuddin, was heading to the Afghan capital Kabul with his driver on Monday when they disappeared in the lawless Khyber tribal district, officials said. “We have launched efforts for his recovery. It now appears clear that he has been kidnapped,” Rasool Khan Wazir, chief administrative official in Khyber, told.
“We are trying to collect information.... We cannot disclose our strategy but we are hopeful we will find out where he has been kept and who is involved.” Security officials said tribal authorities were scouring the rugged area, the site of the famed Khyber Pass linking Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had closed the main road between the two countries.
Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul said it last had contact with the ambassador on Monday morning as he travelled from the northwestern city of Peshawar into the tribal area. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday he hoped for Azizuddin’s quick rescue from “terrorists.” “May God make it happen that our brother and neighbouring country, Pakistan, is able to rescue him from the abductors, the terrorists,” Karzai said.
Azizuddin is the most senior of several government officials to have been abducted in the mountainous tribal belt. Blame has either fallen on Islamist militants or criminal kidnap gangs. Police on Tuesday confirmed that two technicians from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had also been abducted by masked men in the country’s northwest. The officials were on a routine visit to conduct a geological survey for mineral exploration in a mountainous area which adjoins Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions, local police chief Akbar Nasir said.—Agencies