British doctor abducted at gunpoint in Pakistan

Police in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta confirm the abduction at


gunpoint of British doctor Khalil Ahmad Dale, who works with the International Committee of the Red Cross
Gunmen have kidnapped a British doctor working in the lawless south-western Pakistani city of Quetta, in the latest brazen abduction inside the country by an unknown armed faction.
The gunmen seized Khalil Rasjed Dale, a health programme manager with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a few hundred metres from his home. He had been in a clearly marked four-wheel drive vehicle with an ICRC emblem. His kidnappers ambushed him as his vehicle slowed to turn a corner in central Quetta, police said. One man waving a pistol halted his car before bundling him into a Land Cruiser containing seven or eight gunmen. They then sped off.
The ICRC has called for Dale's "rapid and unconditional release". It confirmed he had been living in Quetta for six months, advising local health clinics. His British family had been informed, it added. The Foreign Office said it was urgently investigating the incident.
The abduction is the latest in a string of kidnappings in Pakistan, usually by gangs seeking money. "The ICRC has no indication as to the abductors' identities or motives," the Geneva-based organisation said, adding that its humanitarian work in Pakistan would continue.
Quetta is the capital of Balochistan, a simmering, violence-plagued province next to Afghanistan and Iran. The best-case scenario is that a Baluch insurgent group fighting for greater autonomy has seized the Briton, and might be persuaded via intermediaries to release him. An organisation called the Balochistan Liberation United Front kidnapped an American UN aid worker in 2009.
But there are other, darker, scenarios. It is possible a commercial gang seized Dale, with a view to selling him on to the Pakistan Taliban. The jihadist group, founded in 2007, has been fighting a bloody and relentless war against the Pakistani state, after Islamabad sided with the West a decade ago in the "war on terrorism".
Its motives are ideological – but also financial. The Pakistani Taliban, allied to al-Qaida, is said to be desperately short of cash. Within it are various factions, some more murderous and hardline than others. Islamist militants are believed to be behind the execution of 15 Pakistani security officers – seized last month close to the Afghan border – whose naked, bullet-riddled bodies were discovered in the North Waziristan region on Thursdayyesterday.
Alternatively, the Pakistani Taliban may have seized Dale. Local police said they were trying to find the kidnap vehicle. "We are checking all routes out of the districts but we have not been able to trace it," Nazeer Kurd, a senior city police official, said.
Dale's kidnappers are almost certain to demand a ransom. The gunmen left behind a Pakistani doctor and driver who had been travelling with Dale when they intercepted his vehicle just 200 metres from the ICRC's high-walled residence.
Four health workers, including two doctors, were kidnapped by militants last week from the Pishin area of Baluchistan, near Quetta. They were freed after a shootout between police and their kidnappers.
The Pakistan Taliban are holding several hostages. A Swiss couple, Olivier David Och, 31, and Daniela Widmer, 28, were kidnapped last July while travelling in Balochistan's Loralai district, 105 miles east of Quetta.
The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the abduction, saying they had been moved to Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border, a notorious haven for the Taliban and al-Qaida. The pair are still being held. Their kidnappers released a video of them in September, looking gaunt and holding a newspaper.
The ICRC, which has had a permanent presence in Pakistan since 1981, also said it was scaling down its work in the country and closing six of its 10 offices.
The move was triggered by "operational difficulties" and not Thursday'syesterday's kidnapping, officials said. The organisation has about 100 expatriate and 1,000 local staff, dealing with internal conflicts, displaced people and disasters such as the devastating 2010 flood.
"The main reason we are scaling down is because of increasing difficulties in accessing certain areas and populations," said Narej Resich, an ICRC communications delegate in Islamabad. "The main bulk of our health work will continue."
Resich declined to comment on whether the difficulties were related to Pakistani authorities denying aid workers access to areas, or whether it is was due to fears over security of staff.