PAKISTAN: US investigators were last night leading the interrogation of the al-Qaeda suspect Mr Ramzi Binalshibh at a secret location in Pakistan after the most successful series of strikes against the network for several months.
Pakistani officials said Mr Binalshibh was one of two high-level al-Qaeda figures arrested in a series of raids in Karachi last week. The two men and 10 others who were detained at the same time are being questioned at the high-security hideout.
"They are being interrogated to retrieve maximum possible information about other al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan," one Pakistani military source said. "Most of the time it is United States FBI officials who are interrogating them."
Mr Binalshibh has so far given his name only as Abdullah, although both Pakistani and US officials say they are confident of his identity. Mr Binalshibh and the second unnamed al-Qaeda suspect are being kept separately from the other prisoners and all have been kept blindfolded and hand-cuffed, the source said.
US investigators say Mr Binalshibh, a Yemeni, was an important figure in the preparation for the World Trade Centre attacks and that he passed money and information between the teams of hijackers and al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan.
Pakistani interior ministry officials said it was unclear where the suspect would be sent, although it is likely he will be passed to US authorities first. Dozens of al- Qaeda suspects have been handed over to the US authorities by Pakistan this year, quietly bypassing formal extradition proceedings.
"We certainly want custody of him," the US National Security Adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice told Fox News yesterday. "We will work with the Pakistani officials . . . We certainly want to be able to find out what he knows."
Mr Binalshibh was refused a US visa at least four times before September 11th and wanted to join the hijackers in their attacks, US officials have said. He has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Mr Zacharias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker who was arrested in the days before September 11th. German investigators want to question Mr Binalshibh about the part he played in a suspected al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg.
Pakistani investigators traced Mr Binalshibh after FBI officials intercepted a satellite telephone call which appeared to indicate an al-Qaeda presence in the city. Early on Tuesday, Pakistani intelligence officers raided a flat in the Bahadurabad suburb of Karachi.
From there they were led to a new block and teams of observers from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency waited outside. Early the next day, three men left the building. The team moved in and the three were arrested and later identified as Yemenis.
Hundreds of police and Rangers paramilitary reinforcements were called in and for three hours fought an often unsupervised gun battle with the men inside the block. Five police officers and one Rangers soldier were injured. Two al-Qaeda suspects were killed, a Tajik and a Yemeni. Eventually police forced the last gunmen to give themselves up and they arrested two men, a Pakistani and an Arab, later identified as Mr Binalshibh. - (Guardian Service)
Afghan police foiled a bomb plot yesterday after they discovered explosives hidden inside a fuel tanker being driven into the capital. Police made several arrests in the initial investigation but freed the truck driver after deciding he had no knowledge of the hidden explosives. - (Reuters)