Islamabad:\u00a0(The News)\u00a0The slain American hostage Warren Weinstein could have been released had his captors not gone back on their deal after pocketing $250,000 in ransom money from his family way back in 2012.<\/p>\n
Warren Weinstein, 73, was killed three months ago [on January 15, 2015] in a US drone attack in the Shawal area of North Waziristan on the Pak-Afghan border where he was being held captive. However, strangely enough, his captors continued to negotiate with the intermediary even after the killing of the US aid worker, just to ensure that they get the ransom money. Going by the American media reports that have cited a Pakistani intermediary as the source, even after the drone strike that killed him in January 2015, the kidnappers spoke of handing Weinstein over to the Baghdadi-led IS, never hinting that he was already. According to the intermediary who spoke directly with Weinstein\u2019s kidnappers, the $250,000 ransom money had been handed over to al-Qaeda abductors in the form of $100 bills in 2012 in Peshawar about a year after his capture. \u201cThe money was delivered, but Weinstein didn\u2019t show up,\u201d the intermediary has been quoted by the US media as saying.<\/p>\n
According to these reports, the Pakistani authorities even had a helicopter ready to fly Weinstein to the US Embassy in Islamabad, upon his expected release after paying the ransom money. Instead, the kidnappers, who had described themselves as Afghans, made new demands, after getting hold of the money. They came up with the demand to release a Pakistani prisoner Dr. Aafia Siddiqi in exchange for his life. A letter written by a little known group \u201cQaeda al-Jehad\u201d and addressed to the family of Weinstein had sought to keep the prisoner in exchange for the release of prisoners. \u201cYour continued silence on the inaction of your government (American) will only lead to your prisoner dying a lonely death after this deliberate and prolonged neglect on the part of your government. \u201cTherefore, if you want Weinstein to be released alive, do whatever you can to pressurize your government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Weinstein family has shed little light on the clandestine ransom plot, saying only that they had sought out efforts to rescue him. There are reports that his wife Elaine Weinstein had spoken by phone with her hostage husband in a \u201cproof of life\u201d telephone call prior to the ransom money being handed over to his captors. A Weinstein family spokesman has been quoted by the American media as saying: \u201cOver the 3 1\/2-year period of Warren\u2019s captivity, the family made every effort to engage with those holding him or those with the power to find and rescue him. Weinstein got along well with his captors. He spoke Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, and learned to speak with his kidnappers in another local language, Pashto. His family sent a lot of money to keep him alive on medicine for the heart. Otherwise, he would have been dead long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warren Weinstein\u2019s wife has already expressed disappointment with the American and Pakistani governments\u2019 efforts to secure her husband\u2019s release from his captors, adding that the assistance her family received from the US government was inconsistent and disappointing. \u201cI hope that my husband\u2019s death and the others who have faced similar tragedies will finally prompt the US government to take its responsibilities seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The White House has subsequently announced considering setting up a \u201cfusion cell,\u201d or \u201ctask force\u201d, to better communicate with hostage families and integrate the multiple agencies responsible for the rescue of captives. While Weinstein\u2019s tragic death in a US drone attack focused attention on the Obama administration\u2019s use of drones in the war against terror, President Obama did not hesitate the other day to hail the American spy operations as the best in world. Only a day earlier, Obama had conceded during a press conference while making public Warren Weinstein\u2019s death that the American intelligence was unaware of Weinstein\u2019s presence inside the al-Qaeda compound when it was targeted by the drones in January 2015.<\/p>\n
Warren Weinstein, who was from Rockville, Maryland, was a tenured political science professor at State University of New York at Oswego in the 1970s. After leaving SUNY Oswego, he joined the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and went on to become the Pakistan country director for JE Austin Associates, a development contractor for the US government.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.thenews.com.pk\/Todays-News-6-314983-Even-ransom-money-failed-to-secure-Weinsteins-release<\/p>\n
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Islamabad:\u00a0(The News)\u00a0The slain American hostage Warren Weinstein could have been released had his captors not gone back on their deal after pocketing $250,000 in ransom money from his family way back in 2012. Warren Weinstein, 73, was killed three months ago [on January 15, 2015] in a US drone attack in the Shawal area of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-stories-articles-by-amir-mir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amirmir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}