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| Saturday, 31 July 2004 |
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Pakistan seizes key Al-Qaeda suspect in US embassy bombings ISLAMABAD,Friday (AFP) Pakistan has arrested a senior Al-Qaeda figure wanted by the United States over the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people, the interior minister told AFP Friday. Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who is on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists and has a five-million-dollar bounty on his head, was arrested on Sunday, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said. Hayat described the catch as "a phenomenal success in the international fight against terrorism". The United States accuses Ghailani of involvement in the August 7, 1998 car bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi which left more than 200 people dead and thousands injured. Ghailani was among 14 people arrested in a raid on a house in Gujrat, 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, after a shootout. "We have also arrested his Uzbek wife and two other South Africans. We are in the process of establishing the identities of the pair and their role in the terror network," Hayat said. "Right now he is with our own security forces and we are trying to establish his other alleged linkages within Pakistan, his contacts, his networks," Hayat said in an interview with BBC radio. Asked whether the suspect would be handed to US custody, Hayat told AFP: "Once our interrogations are complete then as per international procedure, and keeping in view Pakistan's own national interest, we will certainly consider any US request for his custody." Hayat stressed that the capture of Ghailani was purely a Pakistani operation. The FBI's website says Ghailani is aged around 30 and his aliases include "Foopie", "Fupi" and "Ahmed the Tanzanian". The US State Department said a reward of five million dollars had been offered for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction. Ghailani was indicted in New York in December 1998 for his alleged involvement in the embassy bombings. The Nairobi attack killed 213 people, 12 of them Americans, while more than 5,000 others were injured. An almost simultaneous attack hit the US embassy in Dar es Salaam killing 11 people. Security officials said Ghailani had quietly moved to the small industrial town of Gujrat some four weeks before his arrest. He and others surrendered after a fierce gun battle which lasted for nearly eight hours and left a policeman seriously wounded. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Al-Qaeda number three and chief planner of the September 11 attacks, was arrested in March last year in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad. Pakistan has arrested more than 500 Al-Qaeda suspects, with the majority of them handed over to US custody. |
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