Abductors set terms to free American

QUETTA, Pakistan | John Solecki, the American chief of the U.N. refugee office who is being held hostage by a mysterious insurgent group, probably never met Ali Asghar Bangulzai, a Pakistani tailor who disappeared nearly eight years ago.

Yet their lives became inextricably linked when Mr. Solecki was kidnapped Feb. 2 on his way to his office in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

Within weeks of the abduction, kidnappers claiming to represent the previously unheard of Baluch Liberation United Front produced a list of nearly 1,100 people - including Mr. Bangulzai - they claim have been picked up by Pakistani secret services.

The kidnappers say they want to trade Mr. Solecki, a native of Demarest, N.J., for Mr. Bangulzai and others on the list. Baluch activists say prisoners are being held in a network of secret sites throughout Pakistan.

To outsiders, the kidnapping marks Baluchistan - the largest but least populated of Pakistan’s four provinces - as yet another front where the central government of nuclear-armed Pakistan is battling for its survival.

•See related story:Pakistan seeks to stem turmoil

Al Qaeda and Taliban militants control vast swaths of North West Frontier Province. Punjab, the most populous of four Pakistani provinces, seethes with daily anti-government protests over a court decision barring opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding public office.

In Baluchistan, Mr. Solecki’s kidnapping appears to reflect growing nationalist sentiment among ethnic Baluch tribes, for whom the connection to militant Islam remains murky.

“As a whole, Pakistan is being challenged by multiple threats and in Baluchistan, the question raised is that many of the Taliban leaders are there,” said Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

“There’s a lot of overlap. People make linkages between the Taliban, al Qaeda militants and tribal elements. We don’t have a full understanding of all of those linkages,” Mr. Katulis said.

Mr. Bangulzai was picked up on Oct. 18, 2001, from his shop on Quetta’s Saryab Road, a bustling commercial street where walls of graffiti display slogans such as “Death to Pakistan,” and “Free Baluchistan.”

It is also the site of frequent sectarian killings, especially of Shi’ite Muslims.

Mr. Bangulzai’s son, Ghulam Farooq, suspects military intelligence is involved because his father was picked up once before, in the spring of 2000.

“When he came back, he told us he was held by [military intelligence] in a torture cell in Quetta city, where he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep and was repeatedly asked about his involvement with nationalist parties,” Mr. Farooq said.

Two days after Mr. Bangulzai’s second disappearance, Mr. Farooq said he approached the deputy inspector general of Quetta’s police department who told him secret agencies had arrested his father.

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