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An attempt to abduct the New Zealand principal of a Muslim school in north-western Pakistan left an armed militant dead and a guard with bullet wounds.
Stephen Jonathon Rykers, escaped the kidnap bid on Sunday, Pakistan's International News website reported today.
Six armed men broke into Mr Rykers' house within the school at Bannu, a town close to the volatile North Waziristan tribal region.
The intruders shot the school guard on duty and seriously wounded him when he refused to let them reach the principal. The wounded guard in turn killed one of the kidnappers and forced others to flee the house.
The guard told investigators that five or six armed men who "looked like Taleban", demanded to know where they could find the principal of the school and opened fire when he refused to help them, said Mehrullah Khan, a police officer in the town.
The other attackers fled. The wounded attacker died at the scene, while the guard was recovering in a hospital.
"We think it was an attempted kidnapping," said Ayub Khan, another police officer.
Bannu is in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province where Taleban militants and their Pakistani allies are asserting ever-greater control.
- NZPA
