Security officials said tonight they feared scores of Pakistani paramilitary soldiers had been kidnapped by pro-Taliban insurgents after they went missing in a region near the Afghan border.
The men disappeared while travelling in trucks to the town of Ladha, 40 km north of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, a semi-autonomous tribal region.
"They're missing. We've had no contact with them since 2pm (10am Irish time)," a military official who declined to be named, said. Intelligence officials in South Waziristan said more than 100 men appeared to have been abducted by militants and taken to a number of different hideouts.
Many al-Qaeda and Taliban members took refuge in Waziristan and other remote regions on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border after US and Afghan opposition forces toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.