Police: Gunmen kidnap Iranian diplomat in Pakistan

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-13 15:16

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Gunmen kidnapped an Iranian diplomat after killing his guard Thursday in Peshawar, a day after an American aid worker was shot dead in the city in volatile northwest Pakistan.

A bullet hole is seen in the windshield of the car belonging to an Iranian diplomat after he was kidnapped in the Hayatabad area of Peshawar November 13, 2008. Gunmen kidnapped the Iranian diplomat in northwestern Pakistan's Peshawar on Thursday, officials said, soon after a US aid worker was killed in a city hit hard by an Islamist insurgency spreading from Afghanistan. [Agencies]

The kidnapping was the latest in a string of attacks on foreigners in Pakistan's northwest, and it underscored the deteriorating conditions in a region used by al-Qaida and Taliban militants as a staging ground for assaults on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

US missile strikes on insurgent targets and a push to develop the northwest region appear to have had little impact on stemming the violence.

The gunmen intercepted the Iranian's vehicle in an upscale area of Peshawar's Hayatabad section as he headed to his office, police official Zarshad Khan said. Authorities cordoned off the city's main roads in trying to trace the victim.

Khan said the guard was slain on the spot. The Iranian consulate confirmed the attack, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for it.

Iran and Pakistan are Muslim nations and neighbors who have generally had cordial relations though unlike Pakistan in the 1990s, Iran did not support the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But although Iran is an adversary of the United States, it is majority Shiite Muslim. The Taliban and al-Qaida, adhere to Sunni Islam and generally view Shiite Muslims as heretics.

Until recently, Peshawar, the dusty, sprawling regional capital, was considered relatively safe for foreigners. But residents say criminality as well as militancy appears to be on the rise. It was possible the Iranian was kidnapped for a ransom.

The latest kidnapping happened in the same area where Afghanistan's ambassador-designate was taken in September and his driver killed. The Afghan diplomat is still missing, as are a Chinese engineer and a Polish surveyor who also were kidnapped in the northwest.

On Wednesday, US efforts to help reduce militancy in Pakistan's northwest through development programs were dealt a blow when gunmen shot and killed American Stephen Vance, who worked for CHF International, a US-based aid group.

The group was implementing US government-funded programs to pump $750 million over five years into developing basic infrastructure such as wells and better clinics and roads in the impoverished tribal areas bordering Peshawar.

Vance was attacked as he was being driven from his home to his office in University Town, an upscale area of Peshawar where a top US diplomat narrowly escaped a gun attack a few months ago. Vance's Pakistani driver also was killed.

The northwest's semi-autonomous tribal regions are considered possible hiding places for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri. Militants use pockets of the northwest as staging grounds for attacks on US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The US has stepped up missile strikes on militant targets in the tribal areas, prompting protests from Pakistani leaders.

During a visit to New York on Wednesday, Pakistan's foreign minister warned against the missile strikes, calling them "unproductive."

"They are contributing to alienation as opposed to winning people over," Shah Mahmood Qureshi said.