[L.A. Times] Al Qaeda grabbed credit Thursday for the kidnapping of a 70-year-old American aid worker in Pakistain in August, and issued a series of demands for his release.In a video message posted on bad boy websites, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Warren Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped
"Just as the Americans detain all whom they suspect of links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even remotely, we jugged this man who is neck-deep in American aid to Pakistain since the 1970s," al-Zawahri said, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors bad boy messages.
Weinstein was kidnapped by gunnies from his house in the eastern city of Lahore on Aug. 13. Police and U.S. officials have not publicly said who they believed was holding him, but Islamist bad boy groups were the main suspects.
Weinstein, who has a home in Rockville, Maryland, worked in Pakistain for several years and spoke Urdu.
He was the country director in Pakistain for J.E. Austin Associates, a U.S.-based firm that advises a range of Pak business and government sectors. The company has said Weinstein is in poor health and provided a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems, that it implored the kidnappers to give him.