WARSAW, Feb 10: Internal divisions within Pakistan’s government apparatus hampered efforts to save the life of a Polish hostage beheaded by Taliban militants, Poland’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

“That the (Islamabad) government cannot count on the loyalty of all of its officers and officials is a sad reality,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a news conference after a weekly cabinet meeting dominated by the killing of Piotr Stanczak.“This was an obstacle in our cooperation, but nevertheless we had cooperation (from the Pakistani side),” said Mr Sikorski, who as a journalist in the 1980s spent time in the region with Afghan guerrillas battling Soviet troops.

The media have quoted Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma as saying after the beheading that Polish intelligence knew the identity of Mr Stanczak’s kidnappers and their “friends in the Pakistani government”. Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday termed Mr Czuma’s comments “very unfortunate” and said the minister — in his job barely three weeks — would not be authorised to comment on this case in future.

Mr Tusk said he did not know whether Pakistan had done all it could to help free Mr Stanczak, adding: “All I can say is that they were very well aware how important this issue was for us.”

Mr Sikorski dismissed suggestions that Warsaw was inactive in trying to secure Mr Stanczak’s release and said the militants had not been interested in ransom money.

“We had to deal with people who are evil in a pure form, whose perverted sense of honour is based on cruelty,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Polish foreign minister on Tuesday asked the US for support in hunting down the Taliban militants suspected in the beheading of engineer.

Radoslaw Sikorski said Poland’s ambassador in Washington had submitted a note to the US State Department “with a request for support for our efforts to capture the killers.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said he had not yet heard of the request. “But of course, should they come to us with a request for assistance, we will do whatever we can.”

Sikorski said Poland was also offering a $290,000 reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the killers of Stanczak.—Agencies