Abdullah Mehsud

Islamabad, Oct. 15 (Reuters): Pakistan will hunt down a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who masterminded the abduction of two Chinese engineers, one of whom died after a rescue operation in which five kidnappers were killed, officials said today.

Al Qaida-linked tribesman Abdullah Mehsud directed the six-day hostage drama ?which caused consternation in key ally China ? from a hideout in the hills of the South Waziristan tribal region along the border with Afghanistan, they said.

After Pakistani commandos killed the kidnappers in the nearby Chagmalai area yesterday, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf promised Chinese President Hu Jintao the masterminds would be ?pursued relentlessly and meted out the most severe punishment?.

The last young militant to cock a snook at the military in the tribal zone bordering Afghanistan was killed by a missile attack on his house in June when his location was pinpointed by tracking of his satellite telephone.

Nek Mohammad, who like Abdullah was in his 20s, had set himself up as a sort of latter-day Robin Hood, leading a group of tribesmen helping to shelter hundreds of al Qaida-linked militants.

Abdullah was likely to share his fate. ?We have to hunt him down. Now we will evolve a strategy and do some planning,? a security official said. ?The man has become too big for his shoes.?

Abdullah, freed from Guantanamo in March after the Pentagon said he was no longer a threat to the US, has made little effort to keep a low profile, giving interviews to local journalists throughout the kidnap drama.

Journalists have been taken to meet him at secret locations by tribal go-betweens and he could prove more difficult to find than Nek Mohammad, as he has been using a long-range cordless telephone harder to detect than a satellite phone. But Abdullah may find it difficult to evade capture too long after angering members of his own tribe who tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the release of the Chinese.

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