Posted on 08/17/2006 9:02:48 AM PDT by Republican Red
Gretchen Peters and Habibullah Khan Report:
A senior al Qaeda commander allegedly tied to the London airplane bomb plot has been arrested in Pakistan, Pakistani intelligence and law enforcement officials have told ABC News. Matiur Rehman, one of the most wanted men in Pakistan, is known to have met with the alleged plot ringleader Rashid Rauf, according to the officials.
Rehman’s capture could provide the most important leads in months to the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s top two leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. Rehman was believed to be in frequent contact with Zawahiri.
Rehman was taken into custody in the southern Punjab city of Bawalpur, the same town where alleged London plot ringleader Rashid Rauf was arrested last week. ABC News saw a copy of the police report on Rehman, with an attached copy of his photo.
Pakistani officials told ABC News earlier that 29-year Rehman was known to be planning a terror spectacular to mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/ll attacks, and the London plot may have been it.
ABC News consultant Alexis Debat, a terrorism expert at the Nixon Center in Washington D.C., says, "[Rehman] is the interface between al Qaeda's leadership and thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Pakistani militants who are able to provide the muscle for al Qaeda's operations not only in Pakistan but around the world."
ROFL!
So keep pinging me....for the next week...I'll be back next Wednesday sometime.
Thanks Ernie. This guy is a big fish. Now he is in a bucket, iced downed. He must be wondering if he will go unto the grill or stay in the bucket.
When your at the library, you might want to check out a book or two . . . Keep your mind off the fact that your internet is shot out of the water.
Now, would it not be something if this is the week OBL is taken . . . ;-)
:-)
Hope this really pans out, intel-wise.
"A lead is a lead", but hollow-point jacketed lead is better.
When you realize that surveillance on the plotters is said to have begun more than eight months ago you can begin to imagine massive scale of the intel task. I can only imagine that there are multiple threads to pull on in a situation like this.
Wonder if THIS is the actual arrest in question.
Wow, 3:00 pm and Fox just broke in wth an "ALERT" announcing that a Top al Qaeda Man in Pakistan Nabbed.
As always, right on top of the breaking news!
ABC had it at 9:30 and I posted it at 12pm.
Fox is often on top of breaking news, but that doesn't stop many around here from taking jabs at them.
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