Pakistan Views

Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin kidnapped by suspected militants more than three months ago has been recovered safe, a senior official said on Saturday.Envoy Tariq Azizuddin was heading to the Afghan capital Kabul with his driver when he disappeared in the troubled Khyber tribal district bordering Afghanistan on February 11.Media reports, quoting unnamed sources, said “the ambassador has been recovered safe and will reach home soon,” but did not provide details.A senior security official told AFP that the ambassador was recovered late on Friday from the custody of a pro-Taliban group just outside the Khyber tribal district.”He is safe and sound,” the official who could not be identified said.The release came nearly four weeks after Azizuddin appeared in a video aired by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in which he said he was being held by the Taliban.He said in the video that he had been taken with his driver and bodyguard who were also shown sitting beside him, while three gunmen stood in the background.Azizuddin had pleaded in the video to the government and the foreign ministry “to do all they can to protect our lives and to answer all the demands of the Taliban in order to secure our release.”The day of his kidnap coincided with Pakistani security forces seizing a senior Taliban commander, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, in southwestern Balochistan province, also bordering Afghanistan.