WASHINGTON—When Pakistani forces freed a Canadian-American family this fall held captive by militants, they also captured one of the abductors. The Americans demanded access to the man, but Pakistani officials rejected those requests, the latest disagreement in the increasingly dysfunctional relationship between the countries. Now, the Trump administration is strongly considering whether to withhold $255 million in aid that it had delayed sending to Islamabad, according to U.S. officials, as a show of dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s broader intransigence toward confronting the terrorist networks that operate there. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive discussions, did not detail what conditions Pakistan would have to meet to receive the aid. It was not clear how the United States found out about the militant’s arrest, but a U.S. drone had been monitoring the kidnappers as they moved deeper into Pakistan.

Source: thestar December 29, 2017 22:52 UTC