hostage

The Susi Air pilot was taken hostage on February 7 after landing in the remote region of Nduga.

In the video, which was sent to RNZ Pacific, Mehrtens was instructed to read a statement saying "no foreign pilots are to work and fly" into Highland Papua until Papua is independent.

He made another demand for West Papua independence from Indonesia later in the statement.

Mehrtens was surrounded by more than a dozen people, some of them armed with weapons.

RNZ Pacific has chosen not to publish the video.

About 500 cadets live in a hostel at the academy.

Five or six "terrorists entered the training school and (went) straight to the hostel where they took cadets hostage," the Pakistani army said in a statement. It was unclear how many students were being held.

"The military has been deployed to the location," the army said.

Twenty people were injured early in the attack, most from bullet wounds, according to a police official who did not want to give his name because he is not authorized to speak to media.

Judith D'Souza, 40, was working for the Aga Khan Foundation when she was abducted at gunpoint near her home in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 9 June.

No details have been given about the rescue operation and officials have not said who the hostage takers were.

"Judith D'Souza is with us - safe and in good spirits," Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter.

Ms D'Souza is travelling back to India with her country's ambassador to Afghanistan and is due to reach Delhi on Saturday evening, Ms Swaraj added.

What is it like living nearly half a decade as a hostage, shuffled between warring militant groups along the notoriously restless Pakistan-Afghanistan border, withstanding gruesome acts of torture and then suddenly, one day, escaping back to one's family and to home?

In his first English language interview since his release, Pakistan's Shahbaz Taseer told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that it is a test of patience, the strength of one's faith and random acts of kindness from the most unexpected of places that made him withstand his ordeal.

Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad's last communicated via his Facebook page on Jan. 24, announcing he had "finally made it" to Syria and was on his way to Hama. His prolific posting subsequently stopped.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende confirmed Thursday that the 48-year-old had been held since January, and that a picture shown in the latest issue of the militants' online magazine Dabiq, showing Grimsgaard-Ofstad in a yellow jumpsuit was believed to be recent.

The extremist group posted pictures of the two men wearing yellow prison outfits in the latest issue of its online magazine Dabiq, which was released Wednesday.

It identifies the Norwegian man as Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad, 48, from Oslo. It identifies the Chinese man as Fan Jinghui, 50, a freelance consultant from Beijing.

The magazine lists a telegram number for "whoever would like to pay the ransom for his release and transfer."