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

WASHINGTON: The White House said Monday that it would not negotiate with al Qaeda over the fate of an elderly US aid worker seized in Pakistan, after he made an emotional video plea to President Barack Obama.

“We cannot and will not negotiate with al Qaeda,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding that officials were greatly concerned for the safety of the aid worker Warren Weinstein, and were working to find him.

Earlier, the elderly Weinstein appeared in an al Qaeda video for the first time since he was kidnapped in Pakistan just days before he meant to return home last August.

The two minute, 40 second video was posted on jihadist forums by al Qaeda’s media arm as-Sahab on Sunday, according to the US monitoring service SITE.

Dressed in a traditional Pakistani tunic and speaking impassively in English, he urged US President Barack Obama to respond to his kidnappers’ demands.

“If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, then I die,” he told Obama in the video.

Weinstein, 70, suffers from asthma, heart problems and high blood pressure.

Ayman al-Zawahiri has demanded that Washington end air strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, and release the 1993 World Trade Centre bombers along with relatives of Osama bin Laden.

Can someone ask the Punjab government that with such a terrible wave of extremism raging there, how many militants has the police nabbed so far? How many have been brought to justice? – AP (File Photo)

His father died for a value system he held dear, and which negated all bigotry and religious extremism. Shahbaz Taseer is now punished for being his father’s son. Are they going to leverage his release with the Taseers being pressured into accepting blood money and let Salmaan Taseer’s killer walk free? Anything is possible in Shahbaz Sharif’s Punjab, with the Sharifs presiding over a cabinet of ministers, some of whom are hand in glove with the banned militant outfits. The Punjab government’s soft-peddling on rising acts of extremist terrorism is little secret. Shahbazpura it is.

The abduction at gunpoint of Shahbaz Taseer from near his Gulberg home in Lahore is a sorry reminder that Pakistan’s second city is no more the safest place to be. This is the second high-profile kidnapping this month after the American development worker, Warren Weinstein, was taken away from his home in Model Town. Now those aren’t the neighbourhoods with a high crime rate, so these are obviously no ordinary crimes. They have all the extremist symbolism attached to them.

And hear this: while Lahore falls apart, the Punjab chief minister tours Sindh to sympathise with the flood victims in Badin and victims of the May 12, 2007 killings in Karachi, offering his sterling advice on how to tackle the law and order situation in this troubled metropolis from the safe environs of a five-star hotel. Why isn’t there a voice in the media saying that this Shahbaz (Sharif) is not up to his job, when there’s a chorus against the failure of the Karachi and Sindh administrations in the same quarters? While Kasur drowns in floodwaters, Mr Sharif feels pain and anguish for the flood-affected of Badin. As Punjab goes under the yoke of Talibanisation, with a series of terrorist attacks and kidnappings rocking the province, the Punjab CM’s heart bleeds for targeted killings in Karachi. Someone please help find the logic.

A terrible wave of extremism grips Punjab, while the police do little besides moral-policing citizens. Can someone ask the Punjab government that with such a terrible wave of extremism raging there, how many militants has the police nabbed so far? How many have been brought to justice? Is there really a figure to be quoted? Nay, the government’s priorities lie elsewhere. The Lahore police chief even thwarted the attempt at nabbing the kidnappers of Warren Weinstein by blowing the whistle at the wrong time. This is precisely why the Americans had to go it alone to kill bin Laden. Our law enforcers are not only inept, they have their strings attached to the fingers of more inept people in the administration.

Because nothing is done in Lahore without the CM being behind it, it is obvious that the cops sniffing people’s breath on the streets of Lahore have such explicit orders. Never mind the firearms that one may be carrying, and which may be used for terrorising the people, staging terrorist attacks on shrines or kidnappings, Lahore law enforcers only ensure that you don’t fly a kite by day or consume alcohol by night. And you are free to kill any number of Ahmadis even as they pray to the same Allah as you do. Can’t always find an Ahmadi? Well, there’s always a Shahbaz Bhatti somewhere in a Christian ghetto or a Salman Taseer who would stand up for him, so you are free to have a go at them instead. Welcome to Lahore, 2011.

The self-righteous cries for saving Karachi from the terror of political parties’ armed wings emanating from Lahore by such eminent people as Imran Khan, Shahbaz Sharif and Aitzaz Ahsan, for instance, are ill-timed, to say the least. Why don’t they do something about fixing Lahore, which for all practical purposes is becoming free-for-all. And all this in the name of Allah, which is a real shame.

The abduction of Warren Weinstein and Shahbaz Taseer are but indications of the severity of the threat posed to Punjab by rising extremism. Will Imran Khan, even if only with his supporters at Lums, stage a dharna at Lahore’s Charing Cross against this evil? Some fat chance, well… in Shahbazpura!

— Murtaza Razvi is a member of the staff at Dawn Newspaper.

Warren Weinstein, 70, had been living in Pakistan for five to six years, according to police. He mostly lived in Islamabad but had been travelling to Lahore. - Photo by AP

LAHORE: An American development expert kidnapped 11 days ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore should be recovered “soon,” a top police official said on Wednesday.

Up to eight assailants kidnapped Warren Weinstein, the country director for J.E. Austin Associates Inc., in a pre-dawn raid on his house in the eastern city of Lahore on Aug. 13.

“He (Weinstein) has not been taken out of Pakistan,” said Lahore police chief Ahmed Raza Tahir told media. “We will soon recover him.”

“We have arrested three men, two from Wazirabad and one from Faisalabad and we are trying to reach their network through them,” he said, referring to cities in the central Punjab province.

Police have also released a sketch of a suspect.

J.E. Austin Associates Inc., is an Arlington, Va.-based consulting firm and has been working on a development project in the lawless tribal areas where Pakistani troops have been battling insurgents for years.

The brazen raid raised worries among aid workers, diplomats and other foreigners working in Pakistan, which is battling militancy and where anti-American sentiments run very high.

There has been no demand for ransom so far, police say.

The victim, 70, had been living in Pakistan for five to six years, according to police. He mostly lived in Islamabad but had been travelling to Lahore.

Kidnapping for ransom is relatively common in Pakistan, although foreigners are not often targets.

Militants also occasionally take foreigners hostage but these incidents have taken place in the volatile western regions bordering Afghanistan, where insurgents are very active.

Pakistani Taliban, linked to al Qaeda, have claimed responsibility for kidnapping a Swiss couple in July in the volatile southwestern province of Baluchistan.

Eight Pakistani employees of a US-based aid organisation, American Refugee Committee, were kidnapped in the western province of Baluchistan last month.

This handout photograph released by the Pakistan Police on August 18, 2011 shows a sketch of one of the suspects wanted for kidnapping an American aid expert at gunpoint in Lahore. -AFP Photo

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police on Thursday released a sketch of a possible suspect in the kidnapping of an American development expert, as public silence from his abductors has added to fears about his fate.

Warren Weinstein was abducted early Saturday after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home in the eastern city of Lahore. 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.

The black-and-white sketch released to the media shows a lean young man with short dark hair and a stubbly beard. Police did not name him. Investigators have been talking to Weinstein’s guards and driver to reconstruct the scene and get details about the abductors.

Police officials could not be reached for comment Thursday. Earlier this week they said there has been no demand for ransom or any other word from Weinstein’s abductors, hampering efforts to free him.

Pakistani authorities have said they have been unable to determine who kidnapped Weinstein.

Kidnappings are common in Pakistan, and foreigners are occasional targets. Criminal gangs are suspected in most abductions, but militants are also believed to use the tactic to raise money through ransoms.

In some kidnappings, victims are taken to Pakistan’s remote tribal regions along the northwest border with Afghanistan, hundreds of miles from Lahore, before the abductors make themselves known. The Pakistani government has little reach in the tribal areas, where Taliban and other militants operate.

Weinstein worked in Pakistan for several years and spoke a fair amount of Urdu. He has a home in Rockville, Maryland. His wife and other relatives have not responded to requests for comment.

J.E. Austin Associates has stressed Weinstein’s commitment to Pakistan’s economic development and said he worked with a wide range of Pakistani government agencies, including the Pakistan Furniture Development Company and the Pakistan Dairy Development Company.

The company also said Weinstein is in poor health and provided a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems. It implored the kidnappers to provide the medicines to the development expert.