Bargaining chip: Abductions planned to free Bin Laden family
Rehman Malik says Taliban plotting to kidnap top officials.
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistani Taliban militants plan to kidnap senior Pakistani officials to pressurise authorities into releasing Osama bin Laden’s family, detained after the al Qaeda leader was killed, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday.
Bin Laden’s wives and several of his children are being held by authorities in Pakistan.
“Intelligence agencies have issued an alert that the TTP have plans to kidnap top people in Pakistan,” Malik told Reuters. It was not possible to immediately verify the report.
“They are planning to use (hostages) as bargaining chips to demand the release of members of Osama’s family in exchange.”
Bin Laden’s relatives were detained after US forces killed him in a raid in Abbottabad on May 2. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry had said Bin Laden’s wives, one from Yemen and two from Saudi Arabia, would be repatriated, but a government-appointed commission investigating Bin Laden’s killing prevented repatriation.
The Pakistani Taliban has staged several suicide bombings in Pakistan to avenge Bin Laden’s death.
They have demonstrated ability to carry out high-profile attacks, including a raid on army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 in which the Taliban took more than 40 people hostage.
Bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told Pakistani investigators in May that she and her family lived for five years in a compound in Abbottabad.
Malik said security had been beefed up after the Taliban kidnap threat.
The TTP is holding more than 20 young tribesmen hostage in an area straddling the border with Afghanistan and have demanded the release of scores of prisoners and an end to tribal elders’ support of offensives against them.
The teenage tribesmen from Pakistan’s northwestern Bajaur tribal region were abducted by the militants on August 31 while on an outing in Afghanistan’s border province of Kunar.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 10th, 2011.
Pakistani Taliban militants plan to kidnap senior Pakistani officials to pressurise authorities into releasing Osama bin Laden’s family, detained after the al Qaeda leader was killed, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday.
Bin Laden’s wives and several of his children are being held by authorities in Pakistan.
“Intelligence agencies have issued an alert that the TTP have plans to kidnap top people in Pakistan,” Malik told Reuters. It was not possible to immediately verify the report.
“They are planning to use (hostages) as bargaining chips to demand the release of members of Osama’s family in exchange.”
Bin Laden’s relatives were detained after US forces killed him in a raid in Abbottabad on May 2. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry had said Bin Laden’s wives, one from Yemen and two from Saudi Arabia, would be repatriated, but a government-appointed commission investigating Bin Laden’s killing prevented repatriation.
The Pakistani Taliban has staged several suicide bombings in Pakistan to avenge Bin Laden’s death.
They have demonstrated ability to carry out high-profile attacks, including a raid on army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 in which the Taliban took more than 40 people hostage.
Bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told Pakistani investigators in May that she and her family lived for five years in a compound in Abbottabad.
Malik said security had been beefed up after the Taliban kidnap threat.
The TTP is holding more than 20 young tribesmen hostage in an area straddling the border with Afghanistan and have demanded the release of scores of prisoners and an end to tribal elders’ support of offensives against them.
The teenage tribesmen from Pakistan’s northwestern Bajaur tribal region were abducted by the militants on August 31 while on an outing in Afghanistan’s border province of Kunar.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 10th, 2011.