Pakistan in bid to free captured troops

Pakistani authorities today sent tribal elders and clerics to negotiate with militants who are believed to have captured more than 100 soldiers in a northwestern region on the Afghan border.

The soldiers disappeared yesterday while travelling in trucks to the town of Ladha in South Waziristan.

Intelligence officials in South Waziristan said the militants had taken the soldiers to different hideouts in the mountains.

Pakistan's military spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Militants in South Waziristan released 18 paramilitary solders and one civilian official this week after holding most of them for nearly three weeks. Earlier, they killed one of the soldiers, videotaping a teenaged boy cutting the man's head off.

The rugged Waziristan region is a hotbed of militant support. It has never been brought under the writ of any government.

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