Pakistan Gunmen Kidnap British Employee of ICRC
Unidentified gunmen on Thursday kidnapped a British employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Pakistan's troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan, police said.
The official was seized in Quetta, the main town of insurgency-hit Baluchistan, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan.
"Khalil Ahmad Dale was standing in front of his office when unknown gunmen riding a Landcruiser picked him and took him away," Nazir Kurd, a senior police official in Quetta told Agence France Presse. "He has a British passport."
An ICRC official in Quetta confirmed the abduction.
Kidnappings are a plague in parts of Baluchistan and northwest Pakistan, where criminals looking for ransom snatch foreigners and locals, sometimes passing their hostages on to Taliban- and al-Qaida-linked groups.
A Swiss couple, Olivier David Och, 31, and Daniela Widmer, 28, were kidnapped in July 2011 while travelling in Baluchistan's Loralai district, 170 kilometers (105 miles) east of Quetta.
The Taliban later claimed the abduction, saying they had been moved to Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border, a notorious haven for the Taliban and al-Qaida. The pair are still being held.
Baluchistan is in the grip of a regional insurgency for self-determination, and is also a flashpoint for Taliban and sectarian violence.
Source: Agence France Presse
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