‘Umdat al-Salik, a manual of Islamic law endorsed by Al-Azhar University, the most respected institution in Sunni Islam, says that hostages can be killed, exchanged for ransom, enslaved, or released, depending on what is best for the Muslim community (o9.14).
“Taliban abduct hundreds in Pakistani tribal region,” by Ashraf Khan and Nahal Toosi for Associated Press, June 1 (thanks to Pamela):
ISLAMABAD — Taliban militants armed with rockets, grenades and automatic weapons abducted at least 400 students, staff and relatives driving away from a boy’s school in a northwest Pakistani tribal region on Monday, police and a witness said.
The brazen abduction came amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s tribal belt “” actions the military says are partly aimed at distracting it from its offensive against the Taliban in the nearby Swat Valley.
Police were negotiating with the Taliban via tribal elders to release of the captives taken in North Waziristan, said Mirza Mohammad Jihadi, an adviser to the prime minister. He said around 500 people were taken and that they were being held in the Bakka Khel area.
Details were still emerging late Monday about what happened, and much was murky.
Police official Meer Sardar said the abduction occurred about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Razmak Cadet College in North Waziristan. The people were leaving the school area after they were warned to get out in a phone call from a man they believed to be a political official, Sardar said, citing accounts from a group of 17 who managed to get away.
Local media, however, reported that the group was leaving because their vacation had started.
Around 30 buses, cars and other vehicles were carrying the students, staff and others when they were stopped along the road by a large group of alleged militants in their own vehicles, according to a staff member at the school who was among those who escaped. The vehicle he was traveling in happened to be behind a truck on the road, and it was less visible, so the driver slipped away.
He requested anonymity out of fear of Taliban reprisal but said the school’s principal was among those abducted….