Pakistani authorities have arrested a 22-year-old German armed with a gun and a dagger for trying to enter the country's wild tribal region without permission, officials said on Thursday.
| "Drop the heater and put yer hands up, Fritz!" |
A provincial government official said the man -- identified by his passport as Richard Cahoon -- had told police he wanted to visit the Kurram tribal agency to learn more about Islam, a religion he converted to several years ago. The official, who did not want to be named, said Cahoon had an unlicenced handgun and a dagger in his possession when he was arrested on Wednesday and was being questioned.
| He didn't need a license for his rocket launcher, though... |
Kurram agency is about 90 km (56 miles) southwest of Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province. According to the official, Cahoon told the investigators he had visited Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan before coming to Pakistan because he wanted to learn more about his adopted religion. An official of the German Embassy in Islamabad told Reuters it was seeking more information about the arrested man. "If he is a German national, we will take all necessary steps in consular affairs, including seeking access," he said.
| "If not, somebody'll probably cut his head off." |
Another Pakistani official said Cahoon arrived in the industrial city of Karachi on March 26 and visited the radical Binori Town religious school, which taught many members of Afghanistan's former hardline Taliban regime. The school is run by Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a senior cleric was once a close associate of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive leader of the Taliban, which has emerged as a guerrilla since being overthrow by U.S.-led forces in 2001. |