Posted on 10/21/2004 6:42:39 AM PDT by milwguy
ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: Law-enforcement agencies have arrested a Yemeni national who is an important figure in Al Qaeda's new leadership and another foreign national who is one of the network's communications specialists, officials said on Wednesday.
The Yemeni, identified as Saleh Nauman, was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore about 10 days ago while trying to slip out of Pakistan, an intelligence official told Reuters.
"He is an important figure in Al Qaeda's new leadership," said the official, who asked not to be named. "He had been here in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the last eight years and wanted to sneak out of the country."
The man had arrived in Lahore from Islamabad about 10 days before he was intercepted by intelligence agents in the city, another intelligence official said.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters authorities had arrested another suspect, who he identified as Abdul Rehman, a communications expert for Al Qaeda.
He said the man was arrested in Peshawar, not far from the Afghan border, three days ago. "He is a communications expert, but I do not know any other details," he told Reuters.
Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of the government's Crisis Management Cell, said investigators were trying to determine Rehman's real identity but added that he was not a senior Al Qaeda figure.
"No, not at all," he said when asked if he was among leading Al Qaeda figures for whom the United States has offered rewards.-Reuters
"We got some information about two foreigners who were in the neighborhood. When we went there we found only one," the official said. "Rehman admitted there was someone else with him, but he never said anything about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed."
Ahmed said "two or three other people were also arrested during a big gunfight." He declined to identify them but said they were being questioned by authorities and were "very important." "This is the work of our security agencies, and they have done a great job," Ahmed said. An intelligence official in Karachi identified the arrested men as Abdul Rehman and Yaqoob Farooqi.
You are right...something isn't right about this.
Rumor is that OBL is on Chinese/Paki border, Omar is being pilloried because he didn't disrupt Afghanistan's election, 1000 paki troops engaged yesterday in a fight, Shia tracking down Sunni al-Qaeda in Paki according to Indian sources ... Looks like al-Qaeda is being pushed out of Pakistan. I wonder where they are going to? Sudan?
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