Pakistani security forces detained a New Zealander on Wednesday who was trying to enter the South Waziristan region, an al Qaeda and Taliban militant stronghold on the Afghan border, officials said. The man, identified as a 35-year-old New Zealander with a European-sounding name, was detained at a paramilitary checkpost on the outskirts of Tank town, about 280 km (170 miles) south-west of Islamabad, which is the gateway to South Waziristan.
"He was travelling in a passenger van. He has a beard and was wearing a shalwar kamiz as a disguise," the top government administrator in Tank, Barkatullah Khan, told Reuters, referring to a traditional baggy trousers and tunic outfit worn by men. He told the soldiers who detained him that he was going to South Waziristan to get married, Khan said. Intelligence officials who declined to be identified said they suspected he might have links with militants.
Western countries are worried that some of their citizens, in particular young men of Pakistani descent, who support the militant cause might travel to north-west Pakistan for militant training and to plot violence.
While some Westerners of Asian descent have been known to travel to Pakistan to join militants, very few Westerners with European roots have been know to have gone there for that purpose. South Waziristan is one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun tribal regions that have long been off-limits for foreigners without special permission and which in recent years have become plagued by militant violence.