15 October 2004	Friday	29 Shaban 1425

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PESHAWAR, Oct 14: One of two Chinese hostages and their five kidnappers were killed in a spectacular commando action in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region on Thursday. The other Chinese hostage was freed unharmed.

Officials said that Wang Peng, a surveyor with the state-run Chinese firm, Sino Hydro Company which is building the multi-million dollar Gomal Zam dam, had been injured during the Operation Shangay, when he took cover behind one of the five militants. Mr Peng, 40, was hit in the abdomen by a bullet and was seriously wounded. He died on way to hospital.

Doctors said that Mr Peng had died because of excessive bleeding. Officials said the bullet had pierced through the body of one of the militants and hit Mr Peng who had ducked behind him.

Peng's compatriot, Wang Ende, also 40, was rescued unharmed along with their Pakistani escort, Asmatullah. The two Chinese and the Pakistani constable had been in captivity since Saturday after they were kidnapped from Tor Mandi near Jandola.

Security officials said that three of the five militants were Uzbeks, affiliated with Tahir Yaldashev's Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and two others were local Mehsud tribesmen.

Tahir carries a $5 million reward on his head and is believed to be hiding in the region with scores of militants. Bodies of the five militants were airlifted to Peshawar in a helicopter. Officials said that specimen from their bodies would be collected for DNA tests.

Mr Ende and the police constable were also flown to Peshawar with the body of Mr Peng. "Mr Ende was visibly shaken but later regained his composure and was all right," an official who had met the Chinese told Dawn.

Officials privy to the rescue operation said the decision to go after the kidnappers had been taken on Wednesday night when the Mehsud tribesmen formally conveyed to the government their inability to free the hostages through negotiations.

The launching time was, however, twice changed from the original 6am to give time to relatives of Abdullah Mehsud - the 29-year-old militant commander - to make one last effort to persuade him to release the hostages.

One of Abdullah's relatives, a retired major of the Pakistan Army, however, turned up at around 11am to inform the authorities that Abdullah had refused to meet them.

Officials said that commandos from the elite Special Services Group led by Colonel Waseem had begun to mobilize at around 6am. Wearing local dress with turbans, Chitrali caps and chadors, disguising as local Mehsuds, they had started taking positions around the target in Khar Narai in Chagmalai near Jandola.

A total of 55 shalwar-kameez wearing SSG commandos moved in groups of three and five to take up positions along with a batch of 30 paramilitary Khasadars on nearby hilltops.

The Jalalkhel tribesmen who were hitherto holding the positions to plug possible escape routes for the militants in their own area had earlier vacated the cordon. Officials said that a group of three sharp-shooters and snipers had been assigned to kill the five militants.

The SSG men waited for the kidnappers to emerge from a compound that had only one shed and a small roof-less room. Officials said that as a matter of routine hitherto practised by the kidnappers, two of them would hold the hostages at gunpoint, possibly with a remote-controlled device to blow them up in case of any attack, to kill the three others stood guard at a distance.

However, minutes before the operation, four militants emerged from the compound and the moment they came in full view, they were targeted by a hail of bullets fired from all directions.

According to eyewitness accounts, the fifth kidnapper who had come out of the compound along with Mr Peng, ran inside and emerged with a rocket but was shot and killed.

The operation which was launched at 12.22pm was completed in only 30 seconds, according to security and government officials. "It was a true blitzkrieg operation," said one official. "And the credit goes to the men who did a wonderful job. Except for the tragic death of Mr Peng who went down by default, the whole operation was conducted and executed professionally," the official said.

General Officer Commanding Kohat, Maj-Gen Niaz Khattak, supervised the overall operation from Jandola while Corps Commander Peshawar, Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain, monitored the situation from Peshawar.

The signal to launch the Operation Shangay was given after security agencies intercepted a radio message by the one-legged militant commander, who had been released from the Guantanamo prison in March this year, to the five kidnappers to kill the two Chinese and get out of the area by 4pm.

The military planners also learnt through a radio intercept that a group of militants, including one believed to be a foreigner named Abu Shakha, was waiting to the west of the compound.

Officials discerned that the group was preparing to take the hostages and their five comrades out of the siege. Interestingly, the officials said, when the militants heard the firing and saw helicopters hovering above did not believe that the SSG had killed their comrades and freed the hostages. "They are out there to scare us," the militants said on their walkie-talkie.

It was after they had seen the SSG commandos that they ordered their men to withdraw and scatter in small groups, the officials said.

"Please, please save our lives," a voice heard on radio were the last words Mr Peng had spoken while talking to a group of journalists who had gone to see Abdullah Mehsud to get the custody of army driver Muhammad Shabaan, who had been in captivity with the militants since he was captured in an ambush on September 9. Abdullah Mehsud had offered to hand over the army driver of the Punjab Regiment to journalists.

The journalists met the militant commander at a place not very far from the targeted area. "We are in a critical position, we are in danger," a journalist quoted the 40-year-old Peng as saying in English on the radio.

The militant commander told the journalists he had ordered the five kidnappers to strap explosives around the bodies of the two Chinese and get them out of the compound. He had, however, agreed to let the journalists go and meet the kidnappers and interview their captives.

But officials said that immediately afterwards they intercepted Abdullah's message to the kidnappers asking them to kill the Chinese and get out. Abdullah warned that he would abandon what he called conventional fight and resort to suicide bombings throughout the country if his men were harmed. "No city of the country will remain peaceful," he told the journalists.