Such kidnappings further threaten the government’s shaky effort to convince hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians that the Taleban are defeated and that it is safe to return to their homes in North and South Waziristan.
Meanwhile, two bombs targeting a police building and a NATO truck convoy in western Pakistan killed a bystander and wounded three people Friday, officials said.
Pakistan Taleban spokesman Azam Tariq announced on Friday that that the 23 tribesmen kidnapped for meeting with the Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani at a gathering in a western tribal district in early December had been released after being tried by a Taleban court and being submerged in cold water as punishment.
Three intelligence sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of their jobs, later confirmed that all the tribesmen had been freed, although the date of their release was not clear.
One of the 23, Shahbat Malik, said he had been reunited with his family in North Waziristan tribal district after being held in a prison-like cell for three weeks. He declined to comment on treatment in captivity.
Malik said that he satisfied the Taleban court that he and the other tribesmen had not gone to see the general in a bid to support the military, but to seek aid for their families.
“We were released after a Taleban court found us innocent,” he told The Associated Press.
Another freed tribesman, Mohammad Amin, said he was relieved to rejoin his family. “It is a big deal to get out of Taleban detention,” Amin said. “It’s a new life.” Tariq said the tribesmen kidnapped for attending a function in the South Waziristan border district on Dec. 7 had told the Taleban court that they had had no idea that Gen. Kayani would be there.
“After that meeting, they learned that the person who met with them was the country’s army chief,” Tariq told the AP in a telephone call from an undisclosed location.
The court ruled that the men be freed, but their Taleban captors had already punished them by immersing them in cold water, Tariq said.
Tariq also warned Islamabad against launching any further military operations in North Waziristan, which has carried the brunt of an escalation in US missile attacks on militant targets in the past year.
“If the government launches any operation, it will make millions of people homeless, and we will retaliate by targeting the security forces everywhere in Pakistan,” Tariq said.
The kidnappings and Friday’s bombings also challenge the Pakistan military’s claim to have ousted Al-Qaeda and the Taleban from their border havens from where they have launched attacks on US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
One of the bombs exploded outside a northwest district police headquarters in the town of Lakki Marwat and further south at the border town of Chaman, officials said. The blast killed a bystander who had yet to be identified and wounded two local residents, police official Rafique Khan said.
