A U.S. consular employee in Pakistan shot and killed two men Thursday as they approached his vehicle on a congested street in the city of Lahore, police said. A pedestrian was also killed by a vehicle that reportedly was racing to the staffer’s aid.

A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad confirmed that the staffer is an American who works at the consulate in Lahore, but could not identify his position.

Police said the American, who was not named, had been taken into custody following the incident.

The senior superintendant of police in Lahore identified the two men shot to death as Faisan Haider and Obaid Ur Rehman, both of whom were reportedly riding motorcycles when the consulate staffer opened fire. Local media quoted witnesses as saying that the men had been “chasing” the American’s car when the shooting began, and police said the dead men were carrying weapons.

Police officer Umar Saeed the two men were suspected robbers and that the American shot at them in self-defense and managed to alert colleagues who were in a vehicle traveling behind him. The vehicle, reportedly a Land Cruiser, hit a passer-by as it rushed to the scene. The pedestrian later died at a Lahore hospital.

Local TV showed footage of what it said was the American’s car, which had several bullet holes in the front windshield.

Given the tense anti-American atmosphere in Pakistan, a shooting on the streets of a major city involving a U.S. citizen could have serious repercussions.

Western diplomats travel with armed guards in many parts of Pakistan because of the risk of militant attack. Lahore has seen frequent terrorist bombings and shootings over the last two years, though the city’s small expatriate population has not been directly targeted.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2008, gunmen shot and killed an American aid worker as he drove to work. Suspected militants also opened fire on the vehicle of the United States’ top diplomat in the city the same year, but she survived the attack.

Street robberies are not uncommon, and foreigners would be perceived as lucrative targets in the poor country.

Lahore is a city of 12 million people in eastern Pakistan not far from the Indian border. The United States has a small diplomatic mission there.

While the facts of the incident are still being established, it may add to anti-American rhetoric in the country.

Sections of the media are prone to fanning right-wing conspiracy theories that frequently feature armed foreigners roaming the country at will, violating its sovereignty. The United States is pumping millions of dollars in aid to the country, but many people still regard it with suspicion or outright enmity.

NPR’s Julie McCarthy reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, for this story, which contains material from The Associated Press. Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.