KARACHI: Pakistan’s military said on Thursday it had recovered four of twelve Iranian border guards abducted by militants close to the Pakistan-Iran border in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province last year.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman also said four of the Iranian border guards kidnapped last year by a Sunni militant group on the border with Pakistan were released on Wednesday.
The militant group Jaish al-Adl abducted 12 border guards in October on the border with Pakistan in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. Five of the guards were released in November.
Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), which says it seeks greater rights and better living conditions for the ethnic minority Baluchis, claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in February that killed 27 members of Revolutionary Guards.
The media wing of the Pakistan army said on Thursday four Iranian soldiers were recovered in an intelligence based operation at Amori in district Chaghai, Balochistan about five kilometres from the Pak-Afghan Border.
“The terrorists of proscribed organisations were reported to have entered Pakistan from Afghanistan side along with abducted Iranian soldiers,” the statement said. “After exchange of fire 4 Iranian soldiers recovered from a transitioning hideout,”
The Pakistan army’s media wing said the soldiers have been handed over to Iranian authorities.
Speaking to a seminar in Quetta, Lt. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa, commander of the army’s southern command, said fencing on the Pak-Afghan border would start from next week, local news channels reported.
Last month Major-General Asif Ghafoor, the Pakistan army spokesperson, said Pakistan and Iran were considering fencing the common border.
