A Chinese engineer held hostage by al Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan was killed yesterday but his colleague was rescued in a commando assault that killed their five kidnappers, officials said.

Chinese engineers Wang Ende and Wang Peng were heading to work on a dam project in the remote South Waziristan tribal region when they were kidnapped on Saturday by Uzbek and Pakistani militants led by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan identified the dead hostage as Wang Peng, who had worked as a surveyor on the project. He said Wang Ende was unharmed. Both men worked for state-run Chinese firm Sino Hydro Corp.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue voiced “deep sympathy and grief” to the family of the dead man. “The Chinese government strongly condemns this terrorist act of kidnapping Chinese citizens,” she said in a statement. China’s official Xinhua news agency said Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told Chinese ambassador Zhang Chunxiang he felt sorry for “the failure” of the operation.

The assault was carried out by commandos disguised as a tribal delegation, one of whom was seriously wounded, Pakistani security sources said. It was launched after shots were heard from the compound where the hostages were held, Sultan said. “The security forces heard firing from within the compound, which created a fear that the abductors had used violence against the Chinese engineers,” he said. “Then immediately the security forces stormed the compound and killed all the five abductors.”

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said one of the engineers was brought out seriously wounded. “With great regrets I have to say ... we are sorry, that he has expired,” he said. Two Pakistanis held with the engineers were freed unharmed, Sultan said. The kidnappers were three Uzbeks and two militants from South Waziristan’s Mehsud tribe, a Pakistani security source said.

<B>Threat to blow up hostages </B>

They had been holed up with explosives strapped to their bodies in a mud house surrounded by security forces and their tribal allies in the Chagmalai area of South Waziristan, about 330 km (200 miles) southwest of Islamabad. Officials said the kidnappers had threatened to blow up themselves and their hostages if a rescue attempt was made. Intelligence sources said seven assault rifles, nine hand grenades, some detonators and a cordless long-range telephone were recovered from the compound.

Pakistani officials said the kidnapping was led by an al Qaeda-linked tribesman named Abdullah Mehsud, a former inmate of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, who gave instructions to the kidnappers by phone from a secret location. He threatened on Monday to order the killing of one of the Chinese unless the kidnappers and their captives were allowed to join him. The military assault came after efforts by members of Abdullah’s Mehsud tribe, including some of his relatives, failed to persuade him to order the release of the hostages.

Officials said Abdullah had also demanded an end to military operations in the semi-autonomous tribal region, where hundreds have been killed this year in battles between troops and al Qaeda-linked militants, and the freeing of two Uzbek militants. Abdullah was freed from Guantanamo in March after the Pentagon said he was no longer a threat to the United States.

The tribal region has long been notorious for kidnapping for ransom, but the latest abductions had appeared to represent a shift in tactics. Sherpao said the kidnappers appeared to have learned from methods used in Iraq. A traditional ally of Pakistan, supplying it with arms and hundreds of millions of dollars in development finance, Beijing had urged Islamabad to do its utmost to rescue the engineers and to increase security for their co-workers.

In May, three Chinese technicians working on a port project were killed and nine wounded in a bomb attack in the southern Pakistani city of Gawadar. Hundreds of foreign militants, including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, are thought to be holed up in the tribal region, protected by Pakistani tribesmen. US officials believe Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders may also be hiding somewhere along the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

<B>David Brunnstrom</B>