The Pakistan army has said that its troops have rescued 80 people who were among a group abducted by Taliban militants in northwester Pakistan.
The district police officer in Bannu has said many are still missing and efforts are on for their safe recovery. On Monday, Taliban militants had taken around 400 cadets hostage from a military-run Cadet College Razmak in Bannu in the country's North Waziristan region.
The staff and students of the Razmak Cadet College were kidnapped when they were travelling through the area in a convoy of vehicles. Heavily armed men are reported to have stopped the convoy of 30 vehicles in the Mirali area.
Abbas also said the militants planned to take the captives to South Waziristan, where there are rumors of a planned military offensive.
The number of hostages originally taken captive has been difficult to pin down, with some saying hundreds were abducted after a roadside ambush by militants.
Abbas said the group of 80 was being held in North Waziristan's Goryam area. He spoke briefly and did not give many details.
Meanwhile, the UN has said that the number of people displaced due to the conflict between Pakistan Army and the Taliban in the NWFP has risen above 2.5 million and a shortage of funds could cut relief services there.
UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters in New York that the new figure, an increase of about 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) over last weeks estimate, was based on numbers collected by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and Pakistani authorities, which are registering people both inside and outside camps.
More than two million people have been driven from their homes by clashes between the Government and militants in the past month, in addition to the 400,000 already displaced in fighting last year.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a briefing to the General Assembly emphasised the need for greater support to scale up the response of the international community and the Pakistani government to the situation.
"The human suffering is immense," he said.
The UN and its partners launched an appeal for $543 million on May 22, of which just over one-fifth has been funded to date. "If we do not get the rest of the funds, we will have to start cutting services," the Secretary-General warned, adding that there is a risk of a destabilising secondary crisis.
(With PTI inputs)
