Gunmen free captives at Pakistani school, flee

PESHAWAR, Pakistan Gunmen held dozens of students and teachers hostage for five hours at a school in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, but authorities allowed the captors to flee without punishment to avoid bloodshed, a tribal negotiator said.
None of the hostages was hurt. But the standoff underscored the government’s fragile grip on Pakistan’s borderlands near Afghanistan, where crime is rife and security forces are struggling to contain rising Islamic militancy.
Kidnapping for ransom is common in Pak istan, particularly in the northwest, and police said the gunmen were criminals seeking profit rather than militants.
The mounting violence has contributed to the growing unpopularity of President Pervez Musharraf, who was on his last stop Monday of a European tour. After talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Musharraf insisted his U.S.-backed policies to fight religious extremism were working.
“I think we are succeeding,” he told a news conference.
He also played down the kidnapping.
“It was incidental that those criminals entered the school,” the president said. “It has been resolved peacefully.”
Police said the half-dozen gunmen seized control of the school near the town of Bannu after a botched attempt to kidnap the government health chief from a neighboring district.
Police had given chase, sparking a firefight in which one gunman died and a policeman was wounded. The health official and two relatives abducted with him were freed.
The gunmen took refuge inside the school and threatened to kill the children, teachers and themselves if anyone attacked. So tribal elders started negotiations while armed villagers and security forces stood guard outside, said former lawmaker Shah Abdul Aziz, one of the negotiators.
In return for releasing the captives and giving up their weapons, the gunmen were given safe passage and left for an unknown destination, he said.
Local police and the government declined to comment on that report.
Meanwhile Monday, about 50 miles southwest of Bannu, security forces clashed with militants in the tribal region of South Waziristan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters find sanctuary.
Violence there has left hundreds dead this month alone.

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