2009,07,30
ISLAMABAD - The United Nations said Thursday it has scaled back operations in Baluchistan province after a threat made by separatists who kidnapped an American aid worker earlier this year - adding to Pakistan's security woes.
Baluch separatists have been waging a low-level insurgency in the impoverished but oil-rich southwest of Pakistan for decades. But the insurgency had not been known to target foreigners until this year, when a group kidnapped the head of the U.N. refugee agency's operations in the region, John Solecki, and held him for two months.
On Sunday, the same group, the Baluchistan Liberation United Front, issued a statement to local media threatening the U.N. The group's purported spokesman, Shahak Baloch, told a local news agency it would target U.N. officials because promises made for Solecki's release had not been kept.
Baloch told the news agency the aid worker had been released on the understanding that the U.N. would take notice of what he called the suppression of and atrocities against the Baluch people, but that nothing had been done since then.
The U.N. would not comment on Solecki's release or whether there had been any conditions.
The threat from the Baluch group adds to the growing security concerns of aid agencies and diplomatic missions in Pakistan, whose activities are already greatly restricted because of bombings and abductions by Islamic militants and military operations along the Afghan border.
"We unfortunately did have to scale back our operation in Baluchistan, which we regret as we were ready to implement several projects," including some on agriculture and women's issues, U.N. national information officer Ishrat Rizvi said.
Janos Tisovszky, the U.N. information center's director, said the situation was being assessed as "the United Nations takes its staff security very, very seriously."
Officials would not elaborate on how far the U.N. operations would be cut back, citing security concerns, but said all U.N. agencies in the area would be affected.
The refugee agency UNHCR temporarily closed its Voluntary Repatriation Center, which helps Afghan refugees return home, for operational reasons, spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said. She would not say whether the closure was due to the threat.
The Baluchistan Liberation United Front claimed responsibility for the February kidnapping of Solecki, who headed the UNHCR's operations in the Baluchistan capital of Quetta.
The group threatened to behead Solecki and issued a grainy video of him blindfolded and pleading for help. They eventually released him in April, but his driver was killed during the initial abduction.
Ethnic Baluch militants have been fighting for a greater share from the federal government of the revenues derived from natural resources such as oil and gas from their otherwise impoverished province. Before Solecki's abduction, they had shown little antipathy toward foreigners.
The separatists' resentment has deepened in recent years as Pakistan's military has launched operations to crush the insurgents, while authorities have detained separatist activists without charge.
Elsewhere, Pakistan's security forces are battling Taliban insurgents on multiple fronts in the troubled northwest of the country. Most prominently, the army has waged a three-month offensive in the Swat Valley and surrounding districts.
In a sign that militants remain active there, the army said Thursday that militants raided the house of a local government official, killing the official's brother and wounding his nephew and a neighbor. The attack came a day after police say Khalilur Rehman, a local elder and prominent member of a local militia, was gunned down in his home in the district of Shangla.
Rehman's son and two other relatives were wounded, and two militants were killed in the ensuing gunfight, said local police head Mohammed Zaman.
Authorities have encouraged the creation of local militias, known as lashkars, to repel Taliban fighters. Many have been targeted in retribution attacks.
The army also said that security forces in the Swat region had arrested 15 suspected militants and seized suicide vests, bombs disguised as toys, and bags of explosives.
In North Waziristan, a tribal area along the Afghan border, security forces used artillery and gunfire to repel an early morning attack by militants on the military's fort in Miran Shah, intelligence officials said.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said one soldier and two militants were killed, and seven militants wounded.
Local tribesmen Hayatullah Khan and Afzal Khan said the fighting was so intense that locals were confined to their homes and shops.
Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Rasool Dawar in Mir Ali contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD99OQIS00
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