A Kidnapping in Baluchistan

From Quetta:

Kidnappers threatened on Friday to kill an American employee of the United Nations within 72 hours and issued a grainy video of the blindfolded captive saying he was "sick and in trouble." A letter accompanying the video delivered to a Pakistani news agency said the hostage, John Solecki, would be killed unless authorities released 141 women it said were being held in Pakistan.

via Malkin. The "Baluchistan Liberation United Front" is taking credit but this group is apparently unknown. The main separatist group is the "Balochistan Liberation Army", whose goal is an autonomous Baloch state.

Why care? Well, the purveyor of the first World Trade Center attack and planner of the Bojinka attack hailed from Quetta as did his uncle, who planned the 9/11 attack (the 16th anniversary of the beginnings of terror on American soil is coming up on February 26th, which ironically is also Liberation Day in Kuwait).

A family tie of those two is currently in custody in New York charged with having sensitive information on a laptop:

Ms Siddiqui later married Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar alBaluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a cousin of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York.

Her husband Ammar al-Baluchi, by the way, is current one of the Gitmo detainees charged with material aid to the 9/11 hijackers.

The region is certainly complicated. With so many unconnected dots perhaps we DO need a truth commission, beginning an investigation somewhere around 1990 in order to determine why the Baloch people hate America so badly. Or if they don't, who might be trying to make it appear as if they do, and why.

Meanwhile the UN is studying the video trying to determine how to proceed. Perhaps they'll issue a strongly-worded resolution. The more serious question is what Obama and the US Government will do if this Pakistani faction flagrantly murders another US citizen. Obama famously said that if Pakistan was sheltering terrorists and they won't act--he will. That is, if he still can.