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Thursday, Jan 5, 2012 10:54 AM UTC

Red Cross Worker Kidnapped In Pakistan

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Topics: From the Wires,

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross says one of its workers has been kidnapped in the restive city of Quetta in southwestern Pakistan.

Spokeswoman Sitara Jabeen declined to disclose the man’s name or nationality.

Local police officer Nazir Ahmed Kurd said his initial information was that the man was British.

But an intelligence official in the city said the man was Yemeni. The official didn’t give his name because he is not allowed to be identified in the media.

Kurd said the man was seized by armed men from a vehicle in Quetta.

Quetta is home to Islamist militants as well as separatist insurgents.

Both have kidnapped foreigners and locals in the region in the past.

___

Sattar reported from Quetta.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani militants on Thursday killed 15 security force members they kidnapped last month close to the Afghan border, showing that not all insurgent factions are interested in reported peace talks with the government.

The men’s naked bodies were dumped in Shiwa town in the North Waziristan region, said local residents Sada-u-Alla and Salam Khan. Local Frontier Constabulary commander Ali Sher confirmed the men had been killed, and said his men had been sent to the area to pick up the bullet-riddled corpses.

In a statement, the Pakistani Taliban said the slayings were in retaliation for an army operation on Jan. 1 in the region that killed several militants, including a prominent commander. It alleged that troops also killed a woman and arrested others, “something that was forbidden and illegitimate in Islam as well as against tribal traditions.”

The slain men were members of the constabulary, a paramilitary outfit active in the border region with Afghanistan.

The insurgents kidnapped them during a Dec. 22 attack on a Pakistani security base in the border region.

In recent months, some militant commanders and intelligence officials have claimed peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, one of the largest and most brutal militant groups, were under way. But other Pakistani Taliban commanders have dismissed this, and sporadic attacks have continued.

Tribal leaders and analysts speculate that the group, which has been pounded by Pakistani army offensives and American missile strikes over the last few years, is riven with internal splits.

___

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar contributed to this report.

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