Pakistan extends detention of American

SHABQADAR, Pakistan | A Pakistani judge Friday extended the detention of an American who police say was caught entering a militant-infested region near the Afghan border.

Also Friday, Pakistani security forces said they found one of two Chinese telecommunications engineers kidnapped by Taliban militants in August, one of a series of high-profile kidnappings in the restive border region in recent months.

The army provided few details Friday about the engineer, other than to say in a statement that troops had recovered him alive. There was no word about the other engineer.

The two telecommunications engineers disappeared in the Dir region of western Pakistan on Aug. 29. A spokesman for Taliban militants in the neighboring Swat region took responsibility for the kidnapping.

Judge Nasrullah Khan granted police two more days to question the 20-year-old American, who has been identified as Jude Kenan. Police had sought an extra week.

Police had brought Mr. Kenan to the court in a town in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province in handcuffs. The bearded suspect was dressed in the long shirt and baggy trousers worn by many Pakistani men.

Police detained Mr. Kenan Monday at a checkpoint leading into Mohmand, a tribal region considered a haunt of al Qaeda and Taliban militants. Officials said he lacked the permission required for foreigners to enter the tribal belt.

Inside the courtroom, local police Chief Qayyum Khan said officers wanted to know what motivated the man to come to the region. However, the chief gave no indication they suspected him of links with militants.

“We need more time to interrogate him to know the purpose of his presence” in the region, Chief Khan said.

U.S. consular officials in Pakistan have visited Mr. Kenan and are providing him with consular assistance.

Mr. Kenan’s uncle, Evan Risueno, has said that his nephew left for Pakistan Oct. 3 from Raleigh, N.C., and that he planned to visit his father, who is Pakistani, and two sisters who live in Pakistan.

Mr. Risueno said Mr. Kenan had visited Pakistan before without encountering any problems.

Pakistan is a key ally of the U.S. in its war on terror, and it has handed over hundreds of foreign terror suspects to Washington after capturing them from various parts of the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It has also deployed more than 100,000 troops to counter Taliban and al Qaeda militants from border regions, including Mohmand and neighboring Bajur, where the military has been fighting militants for the past two months.

On Friday, Pakistani forces killed about 60 Islamic militants in an air strike in the Swat Valley, the military said.