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The FBI helped arrange a ransom payment from the family of Warren Weinstein, the Jewish-American government contractor who had been held hostage by al-Qaida from 2011. News of the unsuccessful ransom attempt for Weinstein, who was accidentally killed in January by a U.S. drone strike, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The family…
The wife of slain Jewish captive Warren Weinstein said the aid worker’s family was devastated by his death in an American drone strike — and slammed the U.S. government for “inconsistent and disappointing” assistance during his years in captivity. Like other American families whose relatives have been killed over the past year after being held hostage…
The family of captive U.S. government contractor Warren Weinstein called for ”date-specific confirmation” that he is still alive. In a statement released Thursday, the Weinstein family said a video distributed last week by al-Qaida in Pakistan does not prove that Weinstein is alive because there is no indication of when it was made. Weinstein, 72,…
Relatives of an American Jewish aid worker held captive in Pakistan for the last two years have broken their silence, expressing their frustration with their ailing loved one’s lingering captivity. In an exclusive interview with ABC news, the wife of Warren Weinstein said that she “wanted to die right there on the spot” when she…
A U.S. development worker kidnapped in Pakistan by al Qaeda two years ago appealed to President Barack Obama to intervene and help negotiate his release, in a video released on Thursday. In a 13-minute clip issued by al Qaeda’s media wing and posted on several news websites, Warren Weinstein, 72, looked gaunt and tired. “I…
In Brooklyn, on December 16, a Jewish family celebrated the return of its loved one from an overseas prison. Jacob Ostreicher, an ultra-Orthodox businessman imprisoned in Bolivia for two and a half years, managed to escape his house arrest there and returned to the United States. In Florida, another family of a Jewish man in…
Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday met with the family of a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, and urged anyone who may have information about his whereabouts to come forward. Robert Levinson, who retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1998, disappeared from Kish Island in Iran on a…
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, join Syria’s rebellion and to ensure Egypt implements sharia, SITE Monitoring reported on Saturday, citing a two-part film posted on Islamist websites. The Egypt-born cleric, who became al Qaeda leader last year after the death of Osama bin Laden, spoke in a message…
