Militants in northwestern Pakistan released video Thursday of an army colonel and his brother, a senior civilian security officer, showing them in captivity and requesting authorities help secure their freedom.
The officers are part of a group of four people, including their third brother and a nephew, whom gunmen abducted Wednesday evening while attending their father’s funeral in the militancy-hit Dera Ismail Khan district.
The outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for kidnapping the four men but did not share their demands publicly.
“We are safe and well and in the custody of the Taliban in a remote area where the Pakistani government has no control,” Lieutenant Colonel Khalid Amir stated in the 35-second video.
Two men dressed in traditional attire, holding assault rifles, are seen in the background with their faces deliberately kept out of the video frame.
“We appeal to the government and our higher authorities to promptly accept the Taliban’s demands for our release,” Amir said without elaborating.
The brother of the army officer, Asif Amir, a police assistant commissioner, made a similar statement and urged his relatives to pressure Pakistani authorities to secure their freedom.
Area security officials confirmed the identities of the hostages and the authenticity of the video to VOA on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the matter with the media.
The fate of the other two hostages was not immediately known. The TTP sources claimed that they do not produce videos of civilian captives who are not associated with the Pakistani military and law enforcement agencies.
The Pakistani Taliban routinely carry out hit-and-run attacks against security forces and government targets in Dera Ismail and other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
Pakistan maintains that the TTP, a globally designated terrorist group, orchestrates deadly cross-border attacks from sanctuaries on Afghan territory and receives growing support from the Islamist Taliban leaders of the neighboring country.
The violence has killed hundreds of Pakistanis, primarily security forces, in recent months, straining Islamabad’s ties with Kabul’s de facto Afghan rulers.
Taliban officials reject the Pakistani allegations, saying the TTP is not present in Afghanistan.
However, recent United Nations security reports disputed Taliban claims and described the TTP as “the largest terrorist group in Afghanistan,” being trained and equipped in al-Qaida-run training camps in areas near the border with Pakistan. The U.N. assessments also noted that Afghan Taliban fighters are participating in TTP-led cross-border attacks in Pakistan.
