New video of US aid worker kidnapped in Pakistan
In this picture released by the SITE Intelligence Group on May 6, 2012 and taken off the video, al Qaeda’s media arm, A-Sahab shows US captive Warren Weinstein telling US President Barack Obama to answer al Qaeda’s demands or he will be killed. – Photo By AFP
ISLAMABAD: A 71-year-old American aid worker kidnapped over a year ago in Pakistan asked Israel’s prime minister for help in meeting al Qaeda’s demands so that he could be freed, in a new video released by the group on Wednesday.
Warren Weinstein did not specify what those demands were, although previous al Qaeda conditions for his release have included the freeing of militant suspects and a halt to US airstrikes.
The aid worker said President Barack Obama and the American government ”have shown no interest in my case.” He appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for help ”as one Jew to another,” asking him to accept the militant group’s demands so he could return to his family.
He did not specify in his statement how the Israeli leader could end US airstrikes or have militant suspects around the world released.
Weinstein spoke while sitting down in front of a camouflage background. He wore a white T-shirt. His captors were not visible.
The video was posted on the Internet by al Qaeda’s media arm, Al-Sahab, according to IntelCenter, a US-based group that monitors media websites. It contained the Al-Sahab logo.
Weinstein was abducted last August in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home. He was the country director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, a US-based firm that advises a range of Pakistani business and government sectors.
Al Qaeda issued a video last December in which the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, said the American would be released if the US stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
Al-Zawahri also demanded the release of all al Qaeda and Taliban suspects around the world.
In May, Weinstein appeared in another video in which he said he would be killed unless President Barack Obama agreed to al Qaeda’s demands.
Kidnapping, Suicide bombing, Hijacking, Murdering or Assassinating to achieve a goal or cause is no more than the act of robbers, thieves, and low-life and so they can’t be respected. A group of men who instead of fighting like a men, comedown to such a tactic just proved their pathetic state-of-cowardice. They just picked an unarmed, old & helpless, harmless man by deceit and now trying to trade it like a prisoner-of-war, what a shame! Do these blood thirsty soul-less men think they will now gain honor in the eyes of their people? Never! They can go ahead and kill as many innocents as they want, nothing stopped them yet from killing shopping women & children in the markets, young cadets riding on the bus, people praying at Jumma & funerals or attending shrines in hopes of their unmet wishes, civil servants going to their duties, people sleeping in hotels, non-Muslims in pilgrimage, did it? As a mater of fact these dumb cavemen are getting farther and farther from their goal than any closer. Enough is enough, If they can’t talk and speak like a man on a table or meeting they are nothing to be taken seriously. There is no diety but the God-Allah & Muhammad is his last Prophet.
Demands are ridiculous!