PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Masked gunmen on Sunday kidnapped a senior local government official in a troubled tribal area in northwest Pakistan where Taliban militants are active, police said.
The gunmen intercepted the heavily guarded convoy of Aamir Latif, an official in South Waziristan, as he was travelling from the area's main town Wana to nearby Tank, local police officer Fazlur Rehman told AFP.
After convincing Latif to exit his vehicle, the kidnappers bundled him into their car and sped off, under the noses of two dozen tribal police guards, Rehman said.
Last month, militants in neighbouring North Waziristan abducted another senior government official, Asmatullah Wazir, from the Mir Ali district. He has not yet been recovered, officials said.
North and South Waziristan are on the border with Afghanistan, and are known hubs of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity.
Officials here have said the head of Al-Qaeda's operations in Pakistan and his deputy were killed in a suspected US drone strike in South Waziristan on January 1.
Usama al-Kini and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were on the FBI's most wanted list in connection with the August 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Senior security officials here said Al-Kini had been suspected of involvement in at least half a dozen attacks in Pakistan, including last year's suicide bombings at the Danish embassy and the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.
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