LAHORE, Pakistan — Gunmen abducted an American aid worker from his home in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday, Pakistani police officials said, in an unusual incident likely to fuel questions about the security of Americans in a country beset by Islamist militancy and kidnapping gangs.
The U.S. Embassy identified the man as Warren Weinstein. A profile on the LinkedIn networking website indicated that he serves as Pakistan country director for the Arlington, Va.-based development contractor J.E. Austin Associates.
The firm’s website said it has held contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development, including in the insurgent-riddled tribal border region, and that Weinstein headed a “strategic development and competitiveness” initiative.
The LinkedIn profile said Weinstein, who maintains a residence in Rockville, Md., had lived in the cultural hub of Lahore for seven years. A Lahore police investigator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Weinstein mostly traveled between the eastern cities of Lahore, Islamabad and Sialkot and that he had no evidence Weinstein had worked in the northwestern tribal areas.
A police investigator working on the case said his team had not determined whether the abductors were Islamist militants or kidnappers seeking a ransom. Kidnapping for ransom is not uncommon in Pakistan. But the targets are rarely foreigners.
Deputy police superintendent Shahzada Saleem said Weinstein was at his rented house in the upscale Model Town neighborhood when three men approached his security guards about 3:10 a.m. Saturday and offered to share food before the Ramadan fast began at daybreak. As the guards opened a gate, at least three more men forced their way in, tied up the guards and a driver, and abducted Weinstein, Saleem said.
