US hostage urges Netanyahu to meet al Qaeda demands

A US aid worker held by al Qaeda in Pakistan for more than a year has appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to help meet the demands of his captors and secure his release, a group that monitors Islamist websites said on Wednesday.

Hostage Warren Weinstein said US President Barack Obama had shown no interest in his case and had failed to respond or accept al-Qaeda's demands, the SITE monitoring service said.

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"Therefore, as a Jew, I am appealing to you, Prime Minister Netanyahu, the head of the Jewish State of Israel, as one Jew to another, to please intervene on my behalf, to work with the mujahideen and to accept their demands so that I can be released and returned to my family, see my wife, my children and my grandchildren again," SITE quoted Weinstein as saying in a video released by al Qaeda.

Weinstein's message to 'the Zionist Netanyahu'

Weinstein, who was kidnapped in the central Pakistani city of Lahore in August 2011, pleaded with Obama in a similar recording in May, saying his life was in his hands.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in December the group was responsible for Weinstein's abduction and demanded the release of all those in US detention for ties to his Islamist militant group or the Taliban.

He also demanded an end to air strikes by the United States and its allies against militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia and Gaza.

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