News
Security officials rescue 11 foreign hostages in SW Pakistan
QUETTA: Pakistani officials on Saturday said they had rescued 11 kidnapped foreigners - eight Iranians, two Tunisians and one Yemeni national - in the southwest town of Turbat near the Iranian border.
The security officials told AFP that those freed did not include a group of Iranian border guards believed to have been kidnapped by jihadists and taken to Pakistan in early February, sparking diplomatic tensions.
"11 foreigners were rescued in a raid in a neighbourhood of Turbat town, some 1,050 kilometres (656 miles) west of Quetta," a security official told AFP.
The raid had been conducted in an attempt to rescue five Iranian border guards who were kidnapped on February 6 from Iran´s Sistan-Baluchistan province, officials said.
But the freed hostages were not thought to be the guards but believed to be connected to drug cartels operating in the province and to have been held hostage by them, officials said.
AFP
Courtesy www.geo.tv