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PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Taliban militants kidnapped 25 police recruits while they were travelling to a training centre in northwestern Pakistan, a senior police official said on Thursday.
The trainees were kidnapped late Wednesday in lawless Orakzai tribal district bordering Afghanistan while they were en route to a police college in the town of Hangu, said provincial police chief Malik Mohammad Naveed.
"They were kidnapped by Taliban," Naveed told AFP, after earlier reports that the trainees had gone missing.
Other police officials said two of the trainees were freed by the Taliban after they pretended to be civilians, while the others were forced from their van and into waiting vehicles. The two recruits alerted police.
Naveed said efforts were underway to try to secure their safe release.
The Pakistani military is battling Taliban militants in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan and the northwestern Swat valley.
The United States said Pakistan's remote border areas are a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels and are being used as a launching pad for attacks on US-led coalition troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Also on Wednesday, Pakistan said at least 15 people were killed in a cross-border raid by Afghan-based international forces, which reportedly took place in a tribal area that has become a haven for militants.
Both the coalition and separate NATO-led security force in Afghanistan said they had no knowledge of any such raid.
In a separate incident on Wednesday, Pakistani government forces said they had killed up to 30 suspected militants in Swat valley.
- AFP/so
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