Pakistan arrests Afghan kidnap suspect

Pakistani security forces have arrested the head of a militant Islamic group suspected in the kidnapping of three UN workers - including Irishwoman Annetta Flanigan - in Afghanistan in October.

Syed Akbar Agha, chief of Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, was captured in the south-western city of Quetta this week, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

He gave no other details.

Armed men seized Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo on October 28. They were freed unharmed in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on November 23 and returned to their homes.

Pakistan has been looking for Agha, who used a mobile phone to contact some media to claim responsibility for the abduction.

Afghan and US officials had sought Islamabad’s help to track him down, an intelligence official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Agha’s real name was Haji Fazal Karim.

“He (Agha) was captured with his wives and children this week, but the women and children were later freed,” he said.

After the kidnapping, Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said Agha’s group may have hired bandits to abduct the UN workers, who helped organise Afghanistan’s October 9 presidential election.

Agha last month said that he would free the trio if Aghan authorities accepted the group’s demand for the release of 26 prisoners held in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Agha’s group said 15 of the prisoners they wanted released were seized by American troops near the southern border town of Spin Boldak last month. The others were detained earlier and some may have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Afghan officials insist the three were freed without the payment of a ransom or any other concessions being made to the kidnappers, who abandoned their captives on a street in Kabul.