KARACHI: A senior army officer and three of his relatives, who were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, safely returned to their home on Saturday, the Pakistani military said.
The army officer, Lt. Col. Khalid Ameer, was on a visit to his ancestral village in Kulachi area of the Dera Ismail Khan district for the funeral of his father, when he was abducted along with three other relatives on Wednesday, according to police.
In a statement issued late Saturday, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistani military’s media wing, confirmed securing their “safe and unconditional” release.
“Safe and unconditional release of Lt Col Khalid Ameer and three of his other relatives has been secured due to role played by tribal elders and local notables,” the ISPR said. “All the abductees have safely returned home.”
The military statement had no mention of the kidnappers, but the northwestern Pakistani region has witnessed a surge in militant activities by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other groups in recent months.
This month, two policemen were killed when a convoy of judges came under attack in the region, according to police. In February, 10 policemen were killed and six others injured in an attack on a police station in Dera Ismail Khan.
In April last year, Judge Shakirullah Marwat was abducted by unidentified kidnappers near a village at the junction of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts, but was recovered after a few days.
Pakistan has faced deadly attacks by the TTP since an uneasy, months-long truce with the group collapsed in November 2022.
Islamabad blames the latest surge in violence on neighboring Afghanistan, saying Pakistani Taliban militants have taken refuge there and run camps to train insurgents to launch attacks inside Pakistan.
Kabul says rising violence in Pakistan is a domestic issue of Islamabad and it does not allow militants to operate on its territory.

PARIS: With its ban of X, which went into effect on Saturday, Brazil joins a small club of countries to have taken similar measures against the social network, most of them run by authoritarian regimes.
Beyond permanent bans, some nations have temporarily restricted access to X, formerly Twitter, which has often been used by political dissidents to communicate.
These have included Egypt in 2011 during the Arab Spring uprisings, Turkiye in 2014 and 2023, and Uzbekistan around that country’s 2021 presidential election.
Here is a list of some of the others:
China
Beijing banned Twitter in June 2009 — before it secured the prominent place it enjoyed in Western media and politics for much of the 2010s.
The block came two days before the 20-year anniversary of the government’s crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital’s Tiananmen Square.
Since then, many Chinese people have turned to home-grown alternatives such as Weibo and WeChat.
Iran
Twitter was also blocked by Tehran in 2009, as a wave of demonstrations broke out following a contested June presidential election.
The network has nevertheless been used since then to pass information to the outside world about dissident movements, including the demonstrations against Iran’s repression of women’s rights since late 2022.
Turkmenistan
Isolated Central Asian country Turkmenistan blocked Twitter in the early 2010s alongside many other foreign online services and websites.
Authorities in Ashgabat surveil closely citizens’ usage of the Internet, provided through state-run monopoly operator TurkmenTelecom.
North Korea
Pyongyang opened its own Twitter account in 2010 in a bid to woo foreigners interested in the country.
But the application has been blocked along with Facebook, YouTube and gambling and pornography websites since April 2016.
Internet access beyond a few government websites is under tight government watch in the hermit regime, with access restricted to a few high-ranking officials.
Myanmar
X has been blocked since February 2021, when authorities took aim at the app for its use by opponents of the military coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government.
Since then, the junta has kept a tight grip on Internet access in Myanmar.
Russia
Access to Twitter was throttled from 2021 by Moscow, which complained the site was allowing users to spread “illegal content.”
A formal ban came in March 2022, just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Many Russian users continue to connect to X via VPN services that allow them to get around the block.
Pakistan
X has been banned since parliamentary polls in February this year.
Pakistan’s government, backed by the army, say the block is for security reasons.
Former prime minister Imran Khan — now in jail — was targeted by widespread allegations of fraud spread via the platform against his opposition party.
Venezuela
Nicolas Maduro, who was declared winner of July’s presidential election despite grave suspicions of fraud, ordered access to X suspended for 10 days on August 9 as security forces were violently putting down nationwide demonstrations.
The block has remained in place beyond the expiry of the 10-day period.
Brazil
The country’s block on X has come from the judiciary, via Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.
He has highlighted the reactivation of accounts that had been ordered suspended by Brazilian courts.
Users connecting to X via a VPN face a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) per day.