Pakistan claims US-Afghan raid rescued the son of former Pakistani PM
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Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said a joint raid by US and Afghan forces on Tuesday managed to rescue the son of a former Pakistani prime minister from a three-year-long Taliban captivity in Afghanistan. There has been no immediate comment from US or Afghan officials on the matter.
The Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar told Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz that Ali Hiader Gilani was found during the raid in Ghazni province. According to the statement from the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, arrangements were being made for his transfer to Pakistan.
Gilani is the son of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, whose secular anti-Taliban Pakistan People's Party's led several major offensives against Islamic militants. Gunmen had kidnapped the younger Gilani in May 2013, several days before the general elections in his central Pakistani hometown of Multan.
The elder Gilani, who served as prime minister from 2008 to 2012, said last year that the kidnappers demanded the release of several al-Qaida prisoners in exchange for his son. He also said that the captors had let his son talk to him by phone, and that he was being held somewhere in Afghanistan.
Abdul Qadi Gilani, brother to the younger Gilani, praised Afghan authorities and Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif for his brother's recovery. A jubilant elder Gulani was seen on Pakistani TV attending an election rally after hearing the news.
"This is a very good day for me," the father said as his other son, Abdul Qadir, told reporters in Multan that his brother will arrive from Afghanistan to Islamabad later Tuesday.
"I am very happy and I have no words to express my joy," Abdul Qadir said.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued a statement expressing pleasure over the rescue.
The Pakistani Taliban have fought the state for over a decade, killing tens of thousands of people in a bid to install their own harsh Islamic governing system.
