ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities found the body of a U.S. diplomat with a bullet wound in his head at his home in Islamabad on Monday and were investigating a suspected case of suicide, police and the Interior Minister said.
The U.S. embassy named the dead man as 37-year-old Keith Ryan, an immigration and customs enforcement attache from the Department of Homeland Security. "There will be a full investigation; however, there does not appear to have been any foul play," the embassy said in a brief statement. The embassy said Ryan had "passed away" on Monday morning, and his family had been informed.
Kaleem Imam, a Senior Superintendent of police in Islamabad, said the diplomat had been in Pakistan for a year and had been due to return to the United States on Monday, having finished his assignment. "But, he did not come out of the home and was found dead in the bathroom. There is a bullet wound in his head," Imam said. Ryan's body was found in his residence on a leafy avenue close to the diplomatic enclave in the Pakistani capital. "We expect it is suicide, but we are investigating," Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told Reuters.
The United States does not let diplomats posted to Pakistan take their families, because of the security threat posed by Islamist militants.
Pakistani children hostage-taking ends
Jan. 28, 2008
ISLAMABAD -- Several children held hostage Monday by armed men in a remote Pakistani school were rescued hours later without being harmed, reports said. Tribal elders in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province took custody of the four or five hostage-takers after securing the release of some 30 children and teachers held captive in a primary school in Bannu district, CNN reported, quoting officials.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who is touring Europe, had been informed about the incident. The BBC reported the hostage-takers had entered the school after escaping from a police confrontation over the abduction of a district health official. The hostage-takers were initially believed to be Islamic militants but were later described as common criminals, although the area has seen growing pro-Taliban activity in recent months.
The BBC report quoted Musharraf as saying in London: "It was incidental that they entered the school to hide themselves. But in the process to hide they took those students hostage." A GEO TV report said in the confrontation with police the kidnapped health official was released and that five of the armed men were arrested. Another armed man was reportedly killed in the encounter, while the rest apparently stormed the school.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/01/28/pakistani_children_hostage-taking_ends/2859/
May God bless Mr. Ryan’s family.
Thank you for the school update, Oorang.
ADDING to your link 1133 Oorang.
Thanks to RDTF for the thread ping.
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1961168/posts
US diplomat found dead
The News ^ | Tuesday, January 29, 2008, Muharam 19, 1429 A.H. | Shakeel Anjum & Mariana Baabar
Posted on 01/28/2008 7:27:55 PM PST by gandalftb
ISLAMABAD: A diplomat of the American Embassy was found dead in his house on Monday, police said.
Keith Ryan, 36 belonged to Homeland Security of the US Embassy and was to return home on Monday morning.
The victim had bullet wound in the upper back portion of his neck, his death was caused by excessive bleeding. The police, recovered the body of the diplomat and a 9 mm gun from the bathroom.
The police had earlier declared it suicide. The pathologists at the PIMS hospital confirmed that Ryan sustained bullet injury on the rear upper neck. The medico-legal experts, however, said he was murdered.
“There is only an entry wound on the rear upper portion of his neck but no exit wound, “ the sources revealed, adding that the bullet could not be found even in X-Ray report. “There is no visible blackening of the entry wound, indicating that the shot was fired from the distance of more than four feet”, the sources claimed.
Keith was scheduled to leave for the USA by Qatar Airways flight QA-398 at 8.45 AM on Monday after completion of his tenure and his colleague, Mr. David Dean, an employee of the USA Embassy, came to his house at about 6.00am to give him a ride to Islamabad Airport but he found no body at his house. As he opened the door of the bathroom, Keith was lying dead in the bathtub while a gun was lying three feet away from the tub. He was wearing knickers.
Keith’s wife and three children are on a pleasure trip to England these days.
Spokesman Sean McCormack identified the diplomat as Keith Ryan, an attache from the Department of Homeland Security. Investigations were continuing, he said, “but we have no indication at this point that it involves foul play.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thenews.jang.com.pk ...
Snippets:
US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has told a French magazine he wants to organise a summit of the Muslim world if he makes it to the White House.
Muslim and Western leaders would be invited to the summit for "a discussion about how we can prevent the widening misunderstandings and gaps between the Muslim world and the West," Obama said in the interview to Paris Match.
In the interview, Obama also said he wanted to shut down the US Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba and end the war in Iraq.
Moderate Muslim group provides route to terror
I dug up the Stratfor report cited in the article. Several paragraphs are devoted to describing the TJs as much more moderate than their Salafi or Wahabbi competition. The group is castigated by Salafs for publicly denouncing armed jihad. So, what becomes of some of these moderate Muslims?
The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) name has come up before in connection with terrorism plots, including the October 2002 Portland Seven and the September 2002 Lackawanna Six cases in the United States, as well as the August 2006 plot to bomb airliners en route from London to the United States, the July 7, 2005, London Underground bombings and the July 2007 attempted bombings in London and Glasgow, Scotland.....
We have received reports that once the recruits are in Pakistan, representatives of various radical Islamist groups, such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Taliban and al Qaeda, are said to woo them actively — to the point of offering them military training. And some of them accept the offer. For example, John Walker Lindh — an American who is serving a prison sentence for aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan — traveled with Tablighi preachers to Pakistan in 1998 to further his Islamic studies before joining the Taliban.
Once you start preaching that Allah requires Islamic Law and that there is a Western conspiracy to oppress Muslims, it's only a matter of time before some of your followers come to the inevitable conclusion that blowing up people isn't terrorism, it's self defense.