ISLAMABAD - Three years after being kidnapped, former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider Gilani dramatically won freedom yesterday in a joint US-Afghanistan operation that was not actually aimed at rescuing him.
This came two months after Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was recovered from a four-year captivity.
US Special Operations Forces who helped free Gilani reportedly did not know he was there before launching the raid in Afghanistan. “It was pure luck,” a defence official was quoted as saying.
Officials confirmed the operation took place in Paktika province of Afghanistan. A statement released yesterday by the United States forces in Afghanistan said: “Under Operation Freedom’s Sentinel authority, the counter-terror mission was planned and launched after evidence of terrorist activity was confirmed. Four enemy combatants were killed as a result of the operation. No other injuries or damage was observed or reported,” it said.
It said that the counter-terror mission was “planned and launched after evidence of terrorist activity was confirmed.”
President Ghani’s spokesman, Zafar Hashemi, told reporters in Kabul that Gilani was being taken to the Pakistani embassy in Kabul.
The raid took place on Tuesday in the Gayan district of Pakitka province, Hashemi said — not in Ghazni province as the Pakistani Foreign Office earlier reported.
A spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Security Council, Tawad Ghorzang, told reporters in Kabul that the rescue took place during an ongoing operation in the area against Al-Qaeda and other militants.
The operation did not specifically seek Gilani, but came across him in the course of anti-terrorist operations, he said.
Gilani was in good health, Ghorzang added, and “will soon be handed through diplomatic channels to Pakistan.”
Gilani was kidnapped by suspected Taliban fighters on May 9, 2013 from Multan, two days before the general election in which he was campaigning. His secretary and a bodyguard were killed and four people wounded. In May last year he was able to phone his father, Yousaf Raza Gilani, to tell him he was well.
The senior Gilani was the prime minister from March 2008 until he was sacked and indicted by the Supreme Court in April 2012 for refusing to reopen corruption cases against the then-president Asif Ali Zardari.
Gilani got the news of his son’s freedom as he was leaving for Bagh for an election rally along with PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
“I was about to board the helicopter to Bagh when I heard the news but I still chose to attend the rally. My son has been recovered with your prayers. I cannot be selfish to ignore you,” he said in his brief address. His party boss Bilawal and others were overjoyed as the party workers danced to celebrate the occasion.
Earlier, Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammed Hanif Atmar, in a telephone call to the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz informed that Ali Haider Gilani had been recovered in a “joint operation carried out by the Afghan and US security forces in Ghazni, Afghanistan.”
Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Okmar Zakhilwal said: “Ali Haider Gilani was recovered from an Al-Qaeda affiliated group in an operation by Afghan Special Forces in Ghanzi province Tuesday morning.”
In April 2014, in a video, Gilani disclosed that he was in custody of a militant group not part of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
Reports said local militants had been involved in the kidnapping who had taken him to the Pakistani tribal regions and later shifted to Afghanistan.
“He (Ali Haider Gilani) is well and will be repatriated to his family soon,” the Afghan envoy said in a statement.
He said he called Yousaf Raza Gilani and informed him about the good news and that he was ecstatically delighted as expected and grateful of President Ashraf Ghani’s personal attention to his son’s safe release.
Pakistani officials had earlier said the captors had demanded Rs2 billion ransom and warned that they would kill him if their demand was not met.
Sartaj Aziz said Ali Haider Gilani would be brought back to Pakistan from Afghanistan through a special flight today. “Ali Haider Gilani at present is at the Bagram airbase and will be handed over to the Pakistani Ambassador in Kabul tomorrow morning,” Aziz told TV channel.