Pakistan’s president offered to boost anti-terrorism cooperation with close ally China following the death of a Chinese engineer held hostage by tribal militants, official media reported. President Pervez Musharraf expressed his “sincere sentiments and condolences” over the death during a meeting with Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said. He assured Tang that security measures had been strengthened to safeguard hundreds of Chinese working on development projects in Pakistan and expressed his “readiness to reinforce anti-terrorism cooperation with China”. Tang was carrying a message from Chinese President Hu Jintao who said the incident would not affect cooperation between Pakistan and China. Chinese engineer Wang Peng died of bullet wounds in an army operation to rescue him from his kidnappers on Thursday. Another abducted Chinese engineer, Wang Ende, was rescued unhurt. All five kidnappers, who belonged to an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group, were killed in the raid on their hideout in the South Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border. The Chinese men, who had been working on a hydroelectric dam project, were abducted on October 9 on the orders of a Pakistani tribal leader, Abdullah Mahsud.Mahsud is a former fighter for Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime and spent 25 months in US custody at the Guantanamo Bay prison before his release in March this year. Earlier a multi-tribe delegation from the northwestern tribal region met with the Chinese delegation to share the grief over the death of the Chinese engineer. They garlanded members of Tang’s delegation, presented two lambs, turbans, and daggers to them as part of traditional tribal hospitality.Full Story
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