Pakistan army rescues 80 students and staff

Pakistan’s army says it has rescued 80 students and staff from a military-run college who were abducted by Taliban militants. Officials say those rescued by troops were some of hundreds of students and staff who were kidnapped on Monday by suspected Taliban militants in northwestern Pakistan.

Military and government officials say the army rescued 71 students and 9 staff members early today after a fierce gun battle with militants in north Waziristan. The clash happened when government troops stopped the militants on a road as they tried to move their captive kidnapped students to South Waziristan where the army is preparing an attack. Soldiers challenged them on a road and a clash erupted, said Maj Gen Athar Abbas, a military spokesman.

The students' convoy was heading home for the summer holiday from Razmak College in North Waziristan to the town of Bannu on Monday when it was seized by Taliban fighters with hand grenades. The exact number of students and staff kidnapped could not be confirmed. But Iqbal Marwat, Bannu's police chief, said, according to news agencies, that Taliban had seized up to 400 people in 28 vehicles but that cores had escaped. About 200 students managed to flee from their captors and arrived at Bannu, said the vice principal of the college, Javed Alam. Maj Gen Abbas said 80 students and staff had been recovered. "Under cover of the firing the militants escaped and we have recovered them all," he said.

South Waziristan is the base of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader. Pakistan launched an offensive against a growing Taliban insurgency in the Swat valley, 80 miles northwest of Islamabad, a month ago and is preparing to take on Mehsud in his lair. Police said earlier that negotiations with the militants were underway overnight via a council of local tribal elders (jirga). Pakistani authorities said the heavily armed Taliban militants from North Waziristan crossed into adjoining Bannu district on Monday and kidnapped a large number of students who were traveling in a convoy.

The convoy reportedly came from Razmak Cadet College, a military-run school in North Waziristan for young men. Authorities in Bannu district initially said the convoy was carrying up to 400 students, parents and teachers. But later accounts suggested that some of the group escaped and that the number of people and vehicles involved may have been much lower.

Meanwhile, Pakistani troops continue to battle Taliban militants to the north, in Swat Valley. The military said Monday it lifted a curfew in seven parts of Swat after aid workers and journalists reported a dire humanitarian crisis in the region. Troops were reported to be closing in on the town of Charbagh, a key Taliban stronghold near Swat's main town of Mingora. The military was dropping leaflets urging people to evacuate ahead of a possible offensive.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, a bomb ripped through a bus station in the northwestern garrison town of Kohat, killing two people and wounding 18 others. Dozens of people, including students and college staff members, were seized by gunmen in Pakistan's tribal district bordering Afghanistan on Monday, a college official said. The abductions are thought to have been carried out by the Islamist extremist Taliban around 25 kilometres from Razmak Cadet College in North Waziristan, which has sanctuaries for fighters with the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban. "Some 400 students were leaving for home for the summer vacations in 40 vehicles when the gunmen intercepted the last four vehicles and abducted around 50 students and college staff," said the college's vice principal, Javed Alam, said over phone.

The abductors released 25 to 30 students hours later and only 15 students and six teachers are in their custody, he added. A government official had earlier said around 400 students and others had all been abducted while on their way to Bannu, a district in neighboring North-Western Frontier Province in more than two dozen buses. "According to the initial information, these students have been kidnapped by the insurgents in Waziristan," said Mirza Mohammad Jihadi, the advisor to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on tribal affairs. He vowed the government would ensure their safe return.

Between 15 to 20 students managed to evade the kidnapping when the driver of the bus they were on managed to drive back to the college, said a local intelligence official. The incident came amid reports that government forces were set for a major offensive against Taliban militants in South as well as North Waziristan. The clashes between the troops and rebels had already started in South Waziristan, a stronghold of warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who is alleged to have been behind dozens of suicide bomb attacks across Pakistan.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children