February 26, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 18, 1429

NOWSHERA, Feb 25: Tension mounted in the Cherat area on Monday when the Khattak tribe made nine people hostage and seized three vehicles of the Afridi tribe after the kidnapping of two men.

A jirga of Khattaks met here and gave a five-day deadline to the Afridi tribe to free the kidnapped men, otherwise their men and vehicles would be captured.

A brick kiln owner, Saeed Khattak, and his assistant Shah Alam were on Sunday evening kidnapped by some people near the Jalozai village when they were going to the Speen Khak village.

Ishaq Khattak convened a meeting of the Khattak jirga’s supreme council, which formed an armed group that went to the Shamshatoo area and captured an Afridi man and a coach.

Speaking at the jirga, Mr Ishaq said they would capture more people of the Afridi tribe if their two kidnapped men were not freed in five days.

On Monday, the armed Khattak group again went to the Frontier Region of Peshawar near Shamshatoo and captured another eight men and three vehicles of the Afridi tribe. The hostages were identified as Fazal Amin, Mohammad Arshad, Meraj, Samad, Mohammad Hayat, Sajjad, Ghulam and Shakir.

The FR political administration convened a jirga of the two tribes to discuss the issue and make a strategy to trace whereabouts of the two kidnapped men.