BBC reporter goes missing in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Nov 21: A Pakistani journalist working for the British Broadcasting Corporation went missing today after visiting a relative in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the broadcaster and the man's family said.

The reporter, Dilawar Khan Wazir, works for the BBC's Urdu-language service, covering the tribal areas on the Afghan border where security forces have been battling Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban.

Several reporters covering the conflict have been killed over recent years.

Wazir had not been heard from since the morning when he left his brother's lodging in Islamabad, bound for the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan, the brother, Zulfiqar Ali, told Reuters.

Ali, a student at Islamabad's International University, said about 10 unidentified men had later visited his college hostel and told students there that Wazir had had an accident and had been taken to an Islamabad hospital.

''We checked with the hospital but Wazir was not there,'' Ali told Reuters. The BBC said the military and the Information Ministry had referred queries about the missing reporter to the Interior Ministry.

Wazir is from the South Waziristan tribal region but had moved to the nearby town of Dera Ismail Khan after the security situation deteriorated in South Waziristan.

In August, Wazir's 15-year-old brother was found near the family home in South Waziristan with severe head wounds. He later died of his injuries.

REUTERS