A 52-year-old American construction worker claiming to be on a mission to kill Osama bin Laden was detained in Pakistan on Sunday.
Armed with a sword, a gun, night-vision goggles, Christian literature and a bit of hashish, Gary Brooks Faulkner told investigators he was on his way to Afghanistan to behead the al-Qaida leader as retribution for 9/11.
According to the BBC, the California man entered Pakistan as a tourist on June 2, was assigned a customary security detail, but abandoned his escorts on the evening of June 7, prompting a search. Authorities subsequently arrested Faulkner near the Afgahnistan border in the Chitral region. Local police officer Mumtaz Ahmad Khan said, “We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden.”
Pakistani authorities told reporters that Faulkner was confident of his objectives, saying, “God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him.”
The State Department is refusing to disclose details. When pressed on the matter, Michael Tran, a State Department spokesman, said only that officials were following the standard procedures associated with Americans detained abroad. “Our U.S. Consulate in Peshawar was notified this morning of the arrest of an American citizen. We are currently working to arrange to have consular access to the American citizen. Due to privacy concerns we are not able to comment more on this situation,” Tran said.
Accordingly, Tran would not elaborate on Faulkner’s official status nor whether the State Department had had any contact with Faulkner’s family. Faulkner’s sister, Deanna M. Faulkner of Grand Junction, Colo., told the Associated Press that her brother suffers from polycystic kidney disease and, with only 9 percent kidney function, needs dialysis. Deanna Faulkner went on to say that she did not believe that his illness acted as an impetus for his actions. The CIA has reported that Osama bin Laden is also dying of kidney failure.
Gary Faulkner claims to have visited Pakistan seven times, three of those times in the Chital region.
The U.S. is currently offering a $25 million bounty for the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden, who has evaded U.S. capture since 2001 and is rumored to be hiding on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Ed. Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the bounty for Osama Bin Laden as $50 million. The story has since been updated to reflect the accurate amount of $25 million.