Kidnappers Threaten American UN Worker Abducted in Pakistan

[tekisui]

Source: AP

QUETTA, Pakistan – Kidnappers holding an American U.N. worker hostage on Friday threatened to kill him in letter that accompanied a grainy video showing him appealing to the world body to act quickly to secure his release.

The letter accompanying the video delivered to a Pakistani news agency said the hostage, John Solecki, would be killed within 72 hours unless authorities release 141 women allegedly held in Pakistan.

The video and the demands indicate that Solecki, the head of the U.N. refugee agency in Quetta, a city near the Afghan border, is still alive and that his captors want to negotiate.

The kidnappers have identified themselves as the Baluchistan Liberation United Front, suggesting a link to local separatists who have waged a long, low-level insurgency against the Pakistani government and not the Taliban or al-Qaida, who are fighting U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Still, the death threat heightens fears for Solecki's safety just a week after Taliban militants apparently beheaded a Polish geologist abducted in another border area of Pakistan after failing to agree to a prisoner swap.

The Pole's slaying, if confirmed, would be the first killing of a Western hostage in Pakistan since U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl was beheaded in 2002.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090213/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_kidnapped_american;_ylt=Avldph0SsMFLAqdUzh3RuXRvaA8F

[tekisui]

1. I didn't even know an American had been kidnapped.

Why isn't this getting more attention?