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news
road.cc newsCyclist kidnapped by Taliban freed after 15 months
A Chinese tourist who was kidnapped in Pakistan by the Taliban more than a year ago as he cycled through the country has been freed.
Hong Xudong is now reported to be safe and in the care of the Pakistani government.
On Sunday evening, Pakistan’s interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali said: “He will be handed over to the Chinese mission in Islamabad tonight”
He added: “Chinese authorities, whenever we meet, would always ask about the captive.”
The captive's release reportedly follows an operation led by Pakistani intelligience forces.
In May last year, a local Taliban commander, Abdullah Bahar, confirmed that they had custody of the cyclist, whom they had abducted close to the city of Dera Ismail Khan.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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8 comments
Why on earth would you cycle through Afghanistan? He could have gone anywhere in the vast country of China or ibfact just about anywhere else.
What a prat
If he did cycle through Afghanistan then clearly he had no problems there as he seems to have made it to Pakistan in time to get kidnapped.
I hope he uploaded pictures of his ride on strava.
Perhaps now is the time to update the formula to N + 1 + c where c is a constant representing a "clunker" you'd happily forfeit to a crackpot gang of swivel-eyed pederasts.
What about the bike?
Now I don't want to start another row but if he'd only been wearing a helmet...
or a turban...
And I thought the occasional close pass was the least of my worries!