Monday, May 19, 2008, Jamadi-ul-Awwal 12, 1429    

40 militants occupy MP’s house in FATA
Relatives, servants taken hostage

Khar—An armed group of pro-Taliban militants occupied a lawmaker’s house in a Pakistan tribal area Sunday, taking his relatives and servants hostage, witnesses and officials said.

Shaukatullah Khan was out of town when up to 40 armed militants stormed his house in the restive Bajaur tribal district that borders Afghanistan. “The Taliban are demanding that Shaukatullah Khan hands over his land and a hill from where marble is extracted,” a local tribesman told AFP, requesting anonymity.

The militants said Khan had made lot of money and it was the property of local tribes, the man added. Local officials said they were not yet aware of the militants’ demands, but had sent a jirga or a peace committee of tribal elders to negotiate the hostages’ release.

It was not immediately clear how many people had been taken hostage. Witnesses said that situation was tense in the area and tribal security forces had blocked a main road linking Bajaur with Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

Pakistani military said a missile fired by coalition forces in Afghanistan earlier this week killed 14 people in Bajaur.

A US Predator drone targeted Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the same area in 2006, killing several rebels but missing him.—AFP