 A group claiming to have kidnapped a Pakistani Embassy official in Iraq has demanded money for his release, senior government officials said yesterday. Malik Mohammed Javed, a deputy counselor at the Pakistani mission in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, went missing late Saturday after leaving home for prayers at a nearby mosque.
| They always seem to get them when they're going to prayers. Have they considered praying in private? Or is that un-Islamic? |
| Gotta be real ostentatious in your piety to be a good Moose limb. Everyone has to see you in prayers five times a day, every day, with beard and properly veiled wimminfolk trailing behind. No private chats with Allan, nosiree. Unless you're on assignment and need to pull a fast one on the infidels. |
Javed's kidnappers have made a demand for money in exchange for his freedom, a Pakistani official said on condition of anonymity. "They have made contact. They are asking for money," he said. He would not specify the amount or say how the abductors made contact. On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry said that a previously unknown group calling itself Omar bin Khattab had abducted Javed. The ministry said Javed had been allowed to contact the Pakistani Embassy in Baghdad to assure officials that he had not been harmed, it said. |