Search for missing Chinese begins

Police launched a search operation in northwest Pakistan yesterday for two Chinese telecommunications engineers and two Pakistanis who went missing last week near the Afghan border.

Al Qaida- and Taliban-linked militants have targeted Chinese nationals in Pakistan's northwest in the past.

The Chinese, along with a Pakistani driver and guard, disappeared from Dir region, some 200 km northwest of Islamabad, on Friday when they were returning to a guest house after fixing a telecommunication tower there.