Al Qaeda: We kidnapped Jewish aid worker in Pakistan
I can’t figure out why anyone would stay in Pakistan right now. I hope someone can rescue this guy but it doesn’t look good from what they are demanding.
Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of American contractor Warren Weinstein in Pakistan and demanded the release of prisoners and an end to air strikes in Muslim countries in exchange for his freedom, according to an Internet statement.
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri also said in an audio recording issued on Islamist websites late on Thursday that a senior al Qaeda leader based in Pakistan known as Attiyatullah had been killed in a US air strike in August.
“Just as the Americans detain all whom they suspect of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban, even remotely, we detained this man who has had an active part in American aid to Pakistan since the seventies,” SITE quoted Zawahri as saying in the recording.
The US State Department is aware of the statement and continues to work with Pakistani authorities leading the investigation, a spokeswoman said.
Assailants kidnapped Weinstein, a development expert, in the Pakistani city of Lahore in August.
Weinstein, 70, had been working on a project in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas where Pakistani troops have been battling Islamist insurgents for years.