Is Singer Heather Schmidt Being Targeted by Terrorists?Heather Schmidt, a world-renowned classical singer with her own charity-driven reality show "The Ambassador," which attracts 200 million viewers in China, has dedicated her life to performing in poverty-stricken countries.
She’s also become the target of suspected terrorist threats.
Following the devastating earthquakes in Pakistan, which thousand in 2006, Schmidt flew from her recording studio in Burbank, Calif. to Lahore, Pakistan to perform in a music festival to raise funds for the country, where she was interviewed by several media outlets.
"After my performance, I introduced myself, and talked about my own brush with tragedy (being present in New York City during 9/11) and how Pakistan stood by my country, and we were shoulder-to-shoulder there for them," Schmidt told Tarts. "I really struck a chord with the people, they really responded to what I was saying."
Schmidt’s visit garnered so much attention that she was invited to do a private performance at the Governor’s Mansion for Pakistan’s then-President Pervez Musharraf. Soon, photos of the two were gracing the pages of numerous publications, and she was deemed the "ambassador of peace" by the Pakistani press.
"People just started associating me with him," she added. "And soon after that, an Al Qaeda leader announced that anyone associated with Musharraf was a target."
But it has been within the last few months that strange incidents have started occurring in Schmidt’s life, prompting her and her management to reach out to the FBI.
"I started to get disturbing phone calls and Facebook requests, my Web site was being hacked in a very slow, clever way. Things like my family photos were being taken and my tour schedule was changed. My webmaster tracked it back to Pakistan, and it was clear from the coding that this was done not by an amateur, but an organized group," she said. "I was then invited to receive a 'Personality of the Year' award in Pakistan, but the details were sketchy, and my friend was shocked to find an extremist video on YouTube where myself, Condoleezza Rice and President Bush are the Americans in the video considered as 'Anti-Islamist'."
The FBI has deemed Schmidt’s case as a credible threat, and has filed a report, advised her to track all calls and odd occurrences, to change her Web server, and to hire protection while out in certain public places.
"I feel like it’s my purpose to travel the world and performing in the East is part of my life plan. I’m not going to stop doing what I do," Schmidt added. "It’s obviously not a good feeling knowing that people are plotting things against you, but I felt like I had such a positive connection with Pakistan, and I don’t want it to be this way."
Original Source : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,509649,00.html
