Out of Captivity

When U.S. officials at Guantanamo Bay reviewed a list of prisoners in March, they decided to send Abdullah Mesud home. Although the 29-year-old Pakistani had been arrested in northern Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban, he was hobbled by an artificial leg and judged to be a low security risk, according to Pakistani officials who supervised his release.

Letting him go was a fatal error. Upon returning to Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region, Mesud rallied tribesmen and former Taliban fighters to hit back at the U.S. and its ally, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. On Oct. 9, as Mesud later told the press, he ordered his men to kidnap two Chinese engineers working on a dam site near the Afghan border. China and Pakistan have close diplomatic and economic ties, and the engineers' capture caused embarrassment in Islamabad and anguish in Beijing. In exchange for his hostages' freedom, Mesud demanded the release of dozens of Islamic militants arrested in a seven-month Pakistani army sweep along the Afghan border.

Early last week, Pakistani commandos disguised in turbans and tribal tunics surrounded the mud house where five of Mesud's men were holding the hostages. On Thursday, according to Lieut. General Safdar Hussain, the regional commander, a shot was heard inside the house. Fearing that the militants were executing their captives, the general said, the commandos attacked. All five kidnappers were killed in the ensuing gunfight, along with one hostage, 32-year-old engineer Wang Peng, who died of gunshot wounds. His fellow captive Wang Ende, 49, was rescued alive. Meanwhile, Mesud was several kilometers away, in touch with his men via radio. Before he escaped the area, Mesud told journalists invited to his lair: "We will fight America and its allies until the end."