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| | GEO Pakistan | | Razmak Students recovered: ISPR | Updated at: 0833 PST, Tuesday, June 02, 2009
 MIRANSHAH: Pakistan Army and FC recovered all the students and staff of Razmak Cadet College, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman said Tuesday.
Commissioner Bannu Sardar Abbas said Pakistan and FC launched a joint operation 20 kilometer to East of Razmak in Garium and recovered at least 71 students and nine staff members of the cadet college.
Soldiers rescued 80 kidnapped staff and students in a sting operation during a fierce battle, one day after they were snatched by masked Taliban gunmen.
The brazen abduction in a wild part of the northwest, which targeted staff and students from an army-run cadet college, had sparked increased fears of a widening backlash to a more than one-month offensive against the Taliban.
The military said all 71 cadets and nine staff were rescued when militants were moving them from the lawless tribal areas of North Waziristan to South Waziristan.
"The army established checkposts and all the routes were blocked. After a fierce fight the army was able to recover them," the army said.
Officials near the college in Razmak said the students are aged 15 to 25 and were not training for the army.
They had been held up at gunpoint on Monday in the province.
"We tried to secure the release through negotiation. After that, we were compelled to launch a military operation," a military spokesman said in Peshawar.
No soldiers or civilian casualties were reported in the sting operation.
Tribal elders and government officials had been locked in talks overnight on efforts to secure the release of the students and staff.
The students had been heading to the town of Bannu after the college closed for the summer, Bannu town police chief Iqbal Marwat said, adding: "They have been kidnapped by Taliban militants."
There had earlier been some confusion as to exactly how many students had gone missing, with numbers ranging from 20 to 100.
The United States, which has strongly backed the operation, is sending special envoy Richard Holbrooke to Pakistan on Wednesday to examine the humanitarian crisis first hand and meet some of the displaced.
UN officials say up to 2.4 million people have fled the fighting, in what has been called the largest internal displacement in more than half a century.
Pakistan has said that more than 1,200 militants and around 90 soldiers have died since the operation was launched at the end of April. |  |
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