PESHAWAR, 11 October 2004 — Militants who are holding two Chinese engineers in a rugged tribal area near the Afghan border have threatened to kill them unless Pakistan releases Al-Qaeda detainees, a security official said yesterday.
“There is only one demand. They have asked for the release of all arrested foreign militants,” the intelligence official, based in the northwest city of Peshawar, told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“They have given the government one day to consider their demand, otherwise they said they will kill the hostages.”
The four captors — three foreign militants and a local tribesman — issued the demands on Saturday, the official said.
The engineers were kidnapped Saturday morning as they traveled to the Gomalzam dam project in South Waziristan, the remotest and most dangerous of Pakistan’s northwest tribal districts. The dam lies around 75 kilometers (46 miles) from the mountainous Afghan frontier.
Police identified the Chinese as Wang Teng and Wang Ende.
China’s Embassy in Islamabad was unaware of the threat and demand. It had been told the engineers were safe and in the custody of a local tribe.
“According to our information at this moment our two Chinese engineers are still safe but they have yet to be released,” said spokesman Zhang Yiming.
“We are informed that the Chinese engineers and the kidnappers are separately under the custody of local tribal elders, and that they are safe this moment.”
North West Frontier Provincial Home Secretary Abdul Karim Qasuria said they were being held near the dam in an area called Jandola. The local Mahsud tribe and religious leaders were negotiating with the captors, he said.
“They are hopeful of ending the crisis peacefully,” Qasuria said.
Aurdin Khan, one of the negotiators, told AFP that a tribal leader called Abdullah Mahsud has announced that his men carried out the kidnapping.
