American slain in Pakistan

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

The American was identified by police and colleagues as Stephen 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, 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.

The early-morning attack Wednesday took place in the same part of the city, a prosperous enclave known as University Town where many diplomats, foreign aid workers and expatriates live.

Police and security officials said Vance was on his way to work when attackers blocked his vehicle in a small passageway and 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. 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.

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 insurgents and civilians, have helped galvanize militant attacks in cities, including the September truck bombing of the five-star Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan’s 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 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.

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laura.king@latimes.com