QUETTA, 21 August 2007 — Pakistani troops yesterday 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-Balochestan province in a town close to the border, and arrested their captors.
There had earlier been confusion over the number of hostages kidnapped, but police officials on both sides of the border confirmed that 21 people had been abducted.
“The troops surrounded the group in Mand,” a mountainous town 25 km from the Iranian border, and “overpowered them,” a Pakistani security source told AFP.
“We have arrested 17 people and secured the release of 21 captives,” the official added.
The group was being flown by helicopter to Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, the official said.
Pakistani authorities late yesterday began handing over the freed hostages to Iranian officials.
“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, Maj. Gen. Salim Nawaz.
Iran’s police chief Esmaeeli Ahmadi Moghaddam said that two militants, including gang leader Sher Khan, 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-Balochestan, 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 rebel group — led by Abdolmalek Rigi — which has claimed a string of attacks and kidnappings in the province.
Sistan-Balochestan is home to a substantial Sunni ethnic Baloch 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-Balochestan 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 traveling on a road notorious for attacks on travelers between Bam and Zahedan.
