Pakistan frees Iranian hostages in shootout

Tehran/Islamabad, Aug 21: Pakistani police have freed 21 Iranian hostages in a two-hour shootout with gunmen who had seized them in southeastern Iran, Pakistani and Iranian officials said today.

The gunmen blocked a road in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province on Sunday and took a number of passengers hostage after burning and opening fire at passing cars. They then took their captives across the border into Pakistan.

''In a successful operation, we freed 21 Iranian hostages and also arrested 16 kidnappers, including one Iranian,'' Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told sources, adding that the operation took place yesterday night.

''They (the kidnappers) have links with Rigi's group,'' the minister said.

Iranian officials have also said the hostage-takers were Sunni Muslim rebels led by Abdolmalek Rigi, whom Iran has blamed for several attacks in the southeast of the country. Iran has said the group has links to al Qaeda.

Rigi was not among those captured, Pakistan's Interior Ministry said.

The operation was carried out in Kach district, about 800 km south of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, a senior Pakistani paramilitary officer said.

''They were trying to shift hostages to a safer hideout when we intercepted them in Kach,'' Pakistani Major General Saleem Nawaz told reporters after handing over the hostages to Iranian authorities in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

''An exchange of fire took place that lasted for about two hours,'' he said, adding that one kidnapper was killed and two were wounded.

Frequent Clash

An Iranian diplomat in Islamabad said all the hostages were in good health, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Earlier Iranian reports had put the number of hostages at as many as 30 but the Pakistani minister said all those held numbering 21 had been released.

It was not clear why the hostages were taken. But some in Iran's Sunni regions complain of discrimination in the predominantly Shi'ite Islamic Republic, a charge Iran denies.

Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province, which has a long border with Pakistan, is notorious for frequent clashes between police and well-armed bandits and drug smugglers.

Rigi leads a Sunni Muslim group called Jundollah (God's Soldiers) which in February claimed responsibility for an attack on a bus owned by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, killing 11.

Officials have said Rigi was a cell leader of Osama bin Laden's Sunni Muslim al Qaeda network in Iran, an overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim country. In June, state television said security forces had wounded Rigi and killed his brother.

Last week in another part of southeast Iran, officials said bandits took two Belgians hostage. One has since been freed.

Tourists in the region have been advised not to travel at night.

Iran's border regions with Afghanistan and Pakistan are a major smuggling route for drugs and other contraband. More than 3,300 Iranian security personnel have died in the region fighting drug traffickers since Iran's 1979 revolution.

REUTERS>