PESHAWAR, Pakistan - An American citizen killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2011 was arrested by Pakistani authorities three years earlier but escaped after being released on bond, officials said Thursday.
The Obama administration revealed Wednesday that Jude Kenan Mohammad died in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal region, making him the fourth American citizen killed by unmanned aircraft in Pakistan and Yemen.
U.S. officials didn’t provide details, but Pakistani security officials said Mohammad was killed in late 2011 in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area.
Mohammad was part of an eight-member group based in North Carolina accused of planning terrorist attacks. He was indicted by federal authorities in 2009 as part of a purported plot to attack the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va. The other seven members were arrested, but authorities said Mohammad fled the U.S. to join Islamic militants in Pakistan’s tribal region.
Pakistani intelligence officials arrested Mohammad on Oct. 15, 2008, after he tried to enter Mohmand, a tribal area considered a sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban militants, without the permissionrequired for foreigners to travel to the tribal region.
Mohammad, who was 20 years old at the time, was carrying a laptop, a dagger, Islamic books and DVDs, a map of Pakistan and an American passport, the security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Mohammad’s family said at the time that he was abroad visiting his Pakistani father, Taj Mohammad. The father owned a gas station in the northwest city of Peshawar, according to the son’s police report from when he was arrested. U.S. consular officials in Pakistan visited the American and provided him with consular assistance.
Mohammad appeared in court in the town of Shabqadar in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Oct. 17, 2008, wearing the long tunic and baggy trousers common among Pakistani men. Police said they were interrogating the American to determine why he was in the area, but gave no indication at the time that they suspected he had links with militants.
Police officials said Thursday that Mohammad was not cooperative during their interrogations and claimed he was being mistreated.
Mohammad was eventuallybooked on charges of weapons possession and traveling without proper documents, but was released on bail. He failed to show up for a court hearing Sept. 5, 2009, bolstering suspicions that he was on the run.
It’s unclear what Mohammad did in the time between when he was arrested in Pakistan and killed in a U.S. drone strike. CIA drone attacks have been a source of tension between Pakistan and the U.S. Pakistani officials regularly criticize the strikes in public as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, although the government has been known to support at least some of the attacks in the past in secret. Pakistani officials also have claimed that the drones kill large numbers of civilians, an allegation the U.S. says is exaggerated.
U.S. officials rarely speak in detail in public about the drone program in Pakistan because of its covert nature.
Pakistan’s incoming government, which will be led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, is under pressure from the public and the courts to stop U.S. drone strikes. Sharif said shortly after his party won the May 11 election that the drones violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Information for this article was contributed by Sebastian Abbot, Munir Ahmed and Lara Jakes of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 05/24/2013