Massive search launched for missing envoy

Islamabad: Security forces yesterday combed tribal territory to trace Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin who went missing on his way to Kabul by road.

The envoy, along with his driver and a security man, disappeared Monday while travelling through the historic Khyber Pass link between the two countries, in the Khyber tribal district, the foreign ministry said.

Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said he could not yet verify or deny reports the ambassador had been abducted

"We are confirming the ambassador is missing but at this stage we cannot give you any more details," he said. The spokesman said all out efforts were being made "at all levels" to find the missing envoy.

Security sources said the envoy's vehicle had been recovered. Two Pakistani employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross disappeared in the area earlier this month and they remain untraced so far.

Khyber is one of the seven tribal districts along the border with Afghanistan, which are administered directly by the federal government.

Main trade route

The road from Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, to the Torkham border crossing through Khyber is the main trade route with Afghanistan and is heavily protected. It is frequently used by US and Nato to provide supplies to their forces in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, two Pakistani nuclear energy officials have been abducted by masked men from a troubled northwestern area near the Afghan border, police said yesterday.

The kidnappers bundled the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) workers and their driver into a vehicle in Shaikh Badin, a town in militancy-hit Dera Ismail Khan district, local police chief Akbar Nasir said.

"They were technicians from the PAEC, they were whisked away early Monday morning," Nasir said.

The officials were on a routine visit to conduct a geological survey for mineral exploration in the mountainous area, which adjoins Pakistan's lawless tribal regions, the police chief said.

- With additional inputs by AFP