Two Belgian tourists have been kidnapped by bandits while visiting the historic sites near the ancient city of Bam in southeastern Iran, local Fars news agency reported on Monday.

 

Local police said the kidnappers have demanded the Iranian authorities release their leader's brother in return for the two Belgian hostages' freedom.

 

"Ismaeel Shahbakhsh, leader of a bandit group in the area in the area, abducted the Belgian couple on Sunday near Fahraj, on the borders of the Kerman and Sistan-Baluchestan provinces," Colonel Abbas Ebrahimi was quoted as saying.

 

Fahraj, 60 km east of Bam, is situated on the road between Bam and Zahedan, the capital of the restive Sistan-Baluchestan province which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.

 

"They (the two Belgians) have been taken to an unknown place. The kidnapper has given guarantees that if his brother is released from prison, he will release the two tourists," Ebrahimi said.

 

Gol-Mohammad Shahbakhsh, Ismaeel's brother, had been arrested by Iranian police in a clash in the area near Zahedan, according to Fars.

 

Iran's official IRNA news agency reported earlier that two Belgian tourists, a married couple aged 27 and 30, have gone missing since Sunday when they were traveling by a car in Fahraj district.

 

Local police and security forces were patrolling the region to find the missing couple, Governor of Bam Majid E'temadi said.

 

Sistan-Baluchestan province and its nearby province of Kerman have been hit by a string of attacks and kidnappings in the past years, which the Iranian authorities blamed on a Sunni group called Jundallah.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2007)