Al-Qaeda Says it Kidnapped Rockville Resident

Al-Qaeda claimed Thursday that it is holding Warren Weinstein, a Rockville resident who was kidnapped in Pakistan in August, the Associated Press reported in a story making headlines internationally.

Weinstein is the Pakistan director for J.E. Austin Associates, an Arlington, Va.-based development contractor. He and his wife have a home in the Aspen Hill community where neighbors told ABC7 after his abduction in August that they were worried for his safety.

Weinstein has lived in Pakistan for five years while working for J.E. Austin Associates, which advises Pakistani business and government agencies, the BBC reported.

Late Thursday, a video recording appeared on militant websites in which Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said that the group would not free Weinstein unless the United States released prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, the AP reported.

NBC News quoted sources on Friday who said, “that there were strong indications that Weinstein, 70, had been passed to a dreaded faction of the Pakistani Taliban.”

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman told The Los Angeles Times that the agency is working “with the Pakistani authorities leading the investigation.”

The Washington Post quoted an anonymous U.S. counterterrorism official who said that “al-Qaeda typically does not make false claims about kidnappings or other operations. ‘We’ve never seen a bogus one,’ the official said.”