U.S. Hostage In Pakistan Freed

U.S. intelligence and Pentagon sources have confirmed to CBS News that John Solecki, an American U.N. official held hostage by militants in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, was released by his captors Saturday evening, just over two months after he was kidnapped.

Solecki, an official with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, was kidnapped on February 2 in Quetta, provincial capital of Baluchistan, while his Pakistani driver was killed.

The kidnappers appeared to have been separatists from Baluchistan province, reports reports CBS News' Farhan Bokhari from Islamabad.

A group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (or BLUF), said they would kill him if the government did not release more than 1,000 activists from Baluchistan nationalist groups it claimed had been arrested by the government.

They have no known links to al Qaeda and the Taliban, which have stepped up attacks on foreigners recently.

In recent days, concern rapidly mounted among Western officials over Solecki's fate after his captors warned that his condition had deteriorated.

A Pakistani news agency late on Thursday quoted Shahid Baloch, a spokesman for BLUF, saying; "The condition of John Solecki is very serious." Baloch was also quoted by the news agency as saying, "We will not release John Solecki on the appeal of the U.N. and others until the recovery of all missing Baluch people."

A senior government official in Islamabad late Saturday evening told CBS News that Solecki had been freed, but declined to go in to details over the circumstances which led to his release. The government refused to confirm or deny reports that the Pakistani government had agreed to release some imprisoned militants in exchange for bringing Solecki back alive.

But a senior Western diplomat who also spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity said, "This release could not have been made possible without some trade-off. I am certain Solecki is a free man but in the process the Pakistanis must have released some people sought by nationalists from Baluchistan."

Last week, a senior Pakistani government official who also spoke to CBS News on condition that he would be named had said that releasing militants in exchange for Solecki was bound to provoke more abductions:

"Once these militants recognize that kidnapping people, especially foreigners, would bring about definite success for their cause, I am certain there would be a surge in kidnappings in the near future."