Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto announced on Twitter that Ali Haider Gilani, son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, has been recovered from Afghanistan’s Ghazni province.
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“We are aware of the report”, a spokesman for the NATO-led worldwide coalition in Afghanistan told AFP without confirming it, adding that more details would be provided once they were “available for release”. In this operation a number of al-Qaida members who resisted were killed and fortunately it resulted to rescue our beloved young unharmed.
Gilani was rescued in the Giyan District of Afghanistan’s Paktika province, a USA statement said. Tensions between the Pakistani and US governments, too, have hampered efforts to cooperate on counterterrorism missions along the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which cedes into mountainous tribal areas in Pakistan’s north. Gen. Charles Cleveland said, The Associated Press reported. Gilani was recovered in Paktika, a province that borders Pakistan, and officials said he would be moved to Kabul for a medical check-up before being returned home.
“I would also like to thank USA forces which, at the critical moments of my release provided me with shelter, food and medical care”, he said.
He was recovered in a joint operation by Afghan and U.S. forces in Ghazni on Tuesday, three years after he was kidnapped from a pre-election rally in Multan.
The Pakistani government had sent a special plane sent to Kabul to bring former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son back.
In Pakistan, the Foreign Ministry said the Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar told Pakistan’s foreign affairs adviser, Sartaj Aziz, in a telephone call about the development.
“During this anti-insurgency operation, Ali Haider Gilani.was identified at the site of the operation, and was freed from terrorists”, a spokesperson said. “Right now, we don’t have any plans to celebrate. We are just waiting to see his face”. According to media reports, the act of kidnapping was allegedly conducted by the militants of the Taliban movement.
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Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif expressed their joy over the safe recovery of Ali Haider Gilani. He was later taken to the tribal areas of Pakistan and then to Afghanistan.
