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Film-maker Asad Qureshi and his fixer Colonel Iman were released last Thursday after being held captive by the Pakistani Taliban for over a month. Khalid Khwaja, the other member of their party was found dead on 30 April in North Waziristan. The two men were been handed over to the Haqqani network, an independent negotiations team who have close links with the Taliban. No ransom money has been paid.
A video released last week demands a Taliban leader be set free in exchange for the safety of Asad Qureshi, a British journalist ,and two retired ISI officers. The missing men left for the North Waziristan region at the end of March. A second video featuring one of the captured the ex-ISI officers, Colonel Khalid Khawaja, was also sent to Asia Times Online. In it, Khawaja details his involvement in negotiations between militants and the army, as well as his part in the arrest of Muhammad Abdul Aziz during the Siege of Lal Masjid in 2007.
A British filmmaker is missing in Northern Waziristan, Asad Qureshi is one of the group of men who have vanished in the mountainous tribal region on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. On 26 March, two former ISI agents set off with Qureshi and another British filmmaker to conduct interviews with Taliban leaders. No other reports have surfaced regarding their whereabouts but a Pakistani army spokesperson has confirmed that they have not been detained by any intelligence agencies.
Kosuke Tsuneoka, a freelance Japanese journalist who has been missing since March 31, has been found imprisoned in the province of Baghlan, according to a local Afghan reporter on Sunday. The Afghan authorities say that they were not aware of Tsuneoka’s presence in the country until his disappearance received publicity, it has been suggested he did not have the right visa/accreditation.