Pakistan arrested American killed by drone

PESHAWAR: An American citizen killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in 2011 was arrested by Pakistani authorities three years earlier but escaped after being released on bail, officials said.

The Obama administration revealed Wednesday that Jude Kenan Mohammad died in a US drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal region, making him the fourth American citizen killed by unmanned aircraft in Pakistan and Yemen. The confirmation came as President Barack Obama is expected to deliver a speech that will focus in large part on the administration’s expanded use of drones to kill hundreds of people in those two countries.

US officials didn’t provide details, but Pakistani security officials said Mohammad was killed in late 2011 in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area.

Mohammad was part of an eight-member group based in North Carolina accused of planning terrorist attacks. He was indicted by federal authorities in 2009 as part of an alleged plot to attack the US Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. The other seven members were arrested, but authorities said Mohammad fled the US to join militants in Pakistan’s tribal region.

Pakistani intelligence officials arrested Mohammad on October 15, 2008, after he tried to enter Mohmand, a tribal area considered a sanctuary for Al Qaida and Taliban militants, without the permission required for foreigners to travel to the tribal region.

Mohammad, who was 20 years old at the time, was carrying a laptop, a dagger, religious books and DVDs, a map of Pakistan and an American passport, the security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

Mohammad’s family said at the time that he was abroad visiting his Pakistani father. US consular officials in Pakistan visited the American and provided him with consular assistance.

Mohammad appeared in court in the town of Shabqadar in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on October 17, 2008, wearing the long tunic and baggy trousers common among Pakistani men. Police said they were interrogating the American to determine why he had come to the area, but gave no indication at the time that they suspected he had links with militants.

Police officials said Mohammad was not cooperative during their interrogations and claimed he was being mistreated.

Mohammad was eventually booked on charges of weapons possession and travelling without proper documents, but was released on bail. He failed to show up for a court hearing on September 5, 2009, bolstering suspicions that he was on the run for a while.

It’s unclear what Mohammad did in the time between when he was arrested in Pakistan and killed in a US drone strike.

CIA drone attacks have been a source of tension between Pakistan and the US officials regularly as the Pakistani people criticise the strikes in public as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

– AP