Gunmen kill American aid worker in Pakistan
Steven Vance was working in an area of the country that is a stronghold of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His driver was also killed.
Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey, and Peshawar, Pakistan -- In a methodical execution-style attack, gunmen with automatic weapons cornered and killed an American aid worker and his Pakistani driver today in the capital of Pakistan's volatile northwest region.
The slain American was identified by police and colleagues as Steven Vance, who was working under contract to an organization that carries out development projects in Pakistan's tribal areas, a stronghold of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The tribal areas lie between Peshawar and the Afghan border.
The killing came less than three months after gunmen tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the senior U.S. diplomat in Peshawar, Lynne Tracy. She escaped uninjured when gunmen fired on her armored vehicle. Today's early-morning attack took place in the same part of the city, a prosperous enclave known as University Town, where many diplomats, foreign aid workers and other expatriates live.
Police and security officials said Vance was on his way to work when attackers blocked his vehicle in a small passageway and then sprayed the car with bullets. Unlike American diplomats, aid workers are generally not required to travel in "hard" or bullet-resistant vehicles.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Wesley Robertson, confirmed the killing of an American citizen and his driver but did not identify Vance or his organization by name. Robertson said American diplomats in Peshawar have been told not to move about the city in the wake of the attack.
Police and paramilitary forces cordoned off the area and were searching for the assailants, who escaped. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although suspicion fell on Taliban-linked militants who have made increasing inroads in and around the city.
Peshawar and its environs have been a focal point of the insurgent-fueled violence sweeping Pakistan. Hours after the attack that killed Vance, a suicide car bomber struck a Pakistani military camp about 20 miles north of Peshawar, killing three soldiers and wounding four others.
On Tuesday, three people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the city's sports stadium.
Over the last three months, the United States has been carrying out a campaign of airstrikes in the tribal areas aimed at senior militant figures. Many Pakistanis believe the Predator drone strikes, which have killed both insurgents and civilians, have served to galvanize militant attacks in Pakistani cities, including September's truck bombing of the five-star Marriott hotel in the capital, which killed more than 50 people.
The Pakistani military is also carrying out a major offensive in the Bajaur tribal area, an important corridor to Afghanistan where many Islamic militants are believed to be based. The Pakistani army says more than 1,200 insurgents have died in the offensive, which began in August, but tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the fighting, many of them living in squalid refugee camps.
Ali is a Times correspondent. King is a staff writer.
laura.king@latimes.com
