File Photo. Noorullah Shirzada—AFP
Six Pakistani employees of Polish company, three tribal policemen abducted by militants near Dera Ismail Khan.
Unknown kidnappers abducted six Pakistani workers of a Polish oil and gas company from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said on Sunday.
The workers from Geofizyka Krakow were in a convoy at Drazinda, around 80 kilometers from the city of Dera Ismail Khan on Saturday, when the kidnappers apprehended them.
“Six Pakistani workers were accompanied by seven guards of tribal police. Around five to six people interrupted their convoy and took away all six Polish company workers and three tribal policemen,” said a senior police official in the region. “Later, they freed the tribal policemen and took the oil workers with them, toward South Waziristan tribal belt,” he said.
A senior government official in the region also confirmed the incident, saying that no group had yet claimed responsibility. He added authorities had launched a search operation for the oil workers.
A Polish engineer was seized by suspected Taliban militants in Pakistan’s northwest in September 2008 and was later killed.
The overall security situation in Pakistan has improved and kidnappings have decreased during the last few years, but its northwest and southwest regions bordering Afghanistan remain volatile. Foreign and local employees of overseas companies are still targeted by militants, who use the border areas as havens.