Gunmen kill U.S. aid worker in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – In a methodical execution-style attack, gunmen with automatic weapons cornered and killed an American aid worker and his Pakistani driver Wednesday in the capital of Pakistan’s volatile northwest region.

The slain American was identified by police and colleagues as Stephen Vance, who was working under contract for an organization that carries out development projects in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaida. The tribal areas lie between Peshawar, the regional capital, 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.

Wednesday’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 generally are 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 following 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 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 at least five soldiers and wounding four others.

Tuesday, three people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the city’s sports stadium.