Aid group halts Pakistan work after employee slain

[Robb]

Source: AP

ISLAMABAD — The international aid group Mercy Corps has suspended its operations in Pakistan after kidnappers killed one of its employees, the agency said Tuesday, the latest fallout from attacks on aid groups in the troubled nation.

Four Pakistani employees of Mercy Corps were abducted Feb. 18 as they drove to one of their offices in Quetta, the capital of southwest Baluchistan province. The staffers were working on health programs in the restive region.

A Mercy Corps press release said the agency recently learned that a 52-year-old driver in the group, a father of nine identified only as Habibullah, had been slain earlier this month. There was no word on the fate of the other three staffers.

"It is shocking and tragic that someone dedicated to improving the lives of Pakistanis should be the target of such senseless violence," Mercy Corps chief executive Neal Keny-Guyer said in the statement.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD9GBP8FG0

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http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7026899.html">According to another report, Mercy Corps headquarters received a video CD from the kidnappers showing the driver being beheaded.

[burnsei sensei]

1. If you couple this with the

upsurge in crime in Pakistan generally, Islamism is really not the problem.
It's just garden variety chaos with the attendant rise in crime.
It would happen in any country in which the rule of law or clan has broken down.

[Robb]

2. The upswing in suicide attacks in Pakistan suggests otherwise.

Not a lot of criminal suicide bombers. :shrug: