LAKKI MARWAT: Security forces on Thursday rescued eight workers kidnapped from a mining site, with three wounded in a shootout with their militant captors, an official said.
Another eight hostages who were being held in a separate location were still missing, an official from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial government told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan said in a statement it had kidnapped the workers to press the government “for certain demands”.
The men were on their way to a mining site run by the state-run Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in the remote Lakki Marwat district when they were kidnapped on Wednesday, the official said.
“The militants set one of their vehicles on fire and took the abductees with them,” he told AFP.
“Local security forces launched an operation in the area, resulting in the rescue of eight hostages, though three of them sustained injuries during an exchange of gunfire,” the official added.
A search was underway for the missing eight.
Lakki Marwat district is one of several areas close to the border with Afghanistan that has experienced a spike in militancy over the past several years.
Pakistan accuses the Afghan government of allowing militancy to flourish in the border regions, a charge that Kabul denies.
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The Pakistani Taliban is the most active militant group. It regularly targets security forces, but also carries out kidnap for ransom operations.
The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence, is charged with researching atomic energy and its uses in the fields of agriculture, medicine and industry.
A district official who asked not to be named told AFP that the site was being mined for uranium.
Security sources have vowed to recover all hostages safely and ensure that that responsible face justice. They emphasized that such acts of violence have no connection with religion or Islamic values.
Earlier, Inter-Services reported that security forces have accelerated operations against militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
During the night between December 12 and 13, six militants were killed in an intelligence-based operation in Lakki Marwat, ISPR said.
Similarly, on December 18, security forces killed 11 militants in operations across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On December 13, the ISPR reported that 43 militants were eliminated in counterterrorism operations in KP and Balochistan over five days.
Between December 9 and 13, 18 militants were killed in KP, while 25 were neutralized in Balochistan, including 10 in Musa Khel and Panjgur during intense gunfights.