Al-Qaeda Releases Video of US Hostage

An American citizen kidnapped from his home in Pakistan last August appeals to President Obama in a video released by al-Qaeda yesterday. Warren Weinstein, 70, tells Obama he will be killed unless the president agrees to the group's demands, the AP reports. "My life is in your hands, Mr. President," the American, who worked for a development contractor in Pakistan, says in the video. "If you accept the demands, I live; if you don't accept the demands, then I die."

If Obama agrees to the demands, "then I will live and hopefully rejoin my family and also enjoy my children, my two daughters, like you enjoy your two daughters," says Weinstein, assuring his wife that he is "being taken care of" and is getting all the medications he needs. In a video released in December, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Weinstein would not be released until the US stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen and released al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. (More Warren Weinstein stories.)