U.S. warns of hold on aid to Pakistan

WASHINGTON — When Pakistani forces this fall freed a Canadian-American family held captive by militants, they also captured one of the abductors.

U.S. officials saw a potential windfall: He was a member of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network who could perhaps provide valuable information about at least one other American hostage.

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, President Donald Trump’s 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.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan, long vital for both, have chilled steadily since the president declared over the summer that Pakistan “gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence and terror.”

The United States, which has provided Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid since 2002, said in August that it was withholding the $255 million until Pakistan did more to crack down on internal terrorist groups. Senior administration officials met this month to decide what to do about the money, and U.S. officials said a final decision could be made in the coming weeks.

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.