Tribal elders in Wana, Pakistan

PESHAWAR/TANK, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Suspected militants associated with Commander Baitullah Mahsud on Friday kidnapped five Christians in South Waziristan Agency (SWA), Pakistan’s English Daily “The News” has reported.

Also, militants blocked the main Wana-Jandola Road where they stopped all passing vehicles to look for the security personnel and government employees, it said.

The story quoted unnamed sources as telling “The News” by telephone from the troubled region that the armed militants stopped a vehicle, which was carrying passengers from Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan, to Dera Ismail Khan.

Among the passengers, five were Christians, whom the militants took into custody and drove them later towards an undisclosed location, said the story.

Three abductees, according to the story were identified as Altaf Masih, Babar Masih and Emanuel, while the names of two other Christians could not be ascertained.

The identified captives it said belonged to Pakistani city of Gujranwala and were employed in Wana.

The two other Christians were their relatives, who had come from Gujranwala to see them in Wana, which is considered a place of terror among the people living in rest of the country, it said.

The story said the hosts and their guests were returning to their hometown when captured by the suspected tribal militants.

Local officials of the political administration confirmed the kidnapping and said no effort could be made for their release as the area where they were disembarked from a vehicle was a stronghold of Mahsud tribal militants, it added.

"[We traveled] even [though] we had been directed by the high-ups to avoid traveling in the area inhabited by the Mahsud tribesmen," it quoted a senior official of the political administration as saying.

On the other hand, militants affiliated with Baitullah Mahsud made the release of Christians conditional with the freeing of six prominent militants now in custody of law-enforcement agencies, it maintained.

The story went on to say that one of them, identified as Commander Raees Khan Mahsud, was arrested by the law-enforcement agencies at a check post near canal in Dera Ismail Khan while coming to DI Khan from South Waziristan. The other five were said to be very important militant commanders of Baitullah Mahsud group picked up earlier from various areas of the tribal region.