Posted on 09/13/2002 8:54:47 PM PDT by HAL9000
WASHINGTON, Sep 13, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A fugitive suspected of helping to organize last year's Sept. 11 attacks in the United States was captured in a deadly shootout in Pakistan, U.S. officials said. Separately, officials said they had broken up a suspected terrorist cell in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York.
The former roommate of hijacker Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh is suspected of planning to be the 20th hijacker in last year's attacks. He was captured in Pakistan nearly a year after he became one of America's top terror targets, U.S. officials said.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Binalshibh was captured earlier this week in a joint raid by Pakistani forces and U.S. intelligence officers in southern coastal city of Karachi. The raid ended in a deadly shootout.
Separately, officials said five men of Yemeni descent, most believed to American citizens, were arrested in Lackawanna, outside Buffalo, on suspicions they were operating as a terrorist cell on U.S. soil. Justice Department officials plan to announce the arrests Saturday in Washington.
A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Justice Department plans to charge the men with providing material support and resources to terrorists.
U.S. officials said the discovery of the alleged cell was connected to information that also prompted the Bush administration to raise America's terror alert to "code orange" - the second highest - on the eve of the Sept. 11 anniversary.
A senior government official said one of the men arrested in Buffalo is linked to Omar al-Farouq, a senior al-Qaida figure captured in Asia this summer, who has provided his interrogators specific information suggesting that terror cells in the region were planning attacks on U.S. facilities, the sources said.
The official did not say how the two were associated.
The official said the information provided by Farouq that led to the higher alert does not stop with the five men arrested in Buffalo. "There are other reasons we're at orange," the official said, without elaborating.
Mayor John Kuryak of Lackawanna, New York, said he was informed six months ago that the FBI was doing an investigation there of a national security matter.
"We're concerned as a community," said Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello.
The capture of Binalshibh was first reported by ABC News and the apprehensions of the suspects in the Buffalo area was initially reported by CBS News.
The officials said the Buffalo-area men were on U.S. soil for years and lived just a few blocks from each other, but were discovered through recent investigation and intelligence suggesting they were part of a terrorist cell.
The evidence included a recent spike in communications with suspected terrorist locations overseas, and some evidence of attendance at a terror training camp linked to Osama bin Laden, the officials said.
The officials said, however, there was no evidence the men were in any stages of launching a terrorist attack.
The arrest of Binalshibh was major coup for U.S. authorities who have searched for him for months. Officials said he was not wounded during the capture.
Before Sept. 11, Binalshibh was frustrated in his attempts to receive a visa to enter the United States in 2000, where, U.S. officials allege, he planned to join the other 19 hijackers. Instead, he provided financial support to the other hijackers, officials said.
Binalshibh, 30, was born in Yemen. He was being sought by the German government for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks.
He is considered an aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings that left nearly 3,000 dead, officials said. Mohammed is still at large.
Officials declined to discuss Binalshibh's whereabouts, or whether he was providing information to authorities.
To catch him, police commandos fought a pitched battle with al-Qaida suspects holed up in an apartment Wednesday, with combat spilling out onto adjoining rooftops, officials said. They said that two suspects were killed and several more captured in the fighting, as Pakistan stepped up pressure on the remnants of the terrorist movement a year after it made its mark on the world.
At least six officers were wounded when police stormed the top-floor apartment and the rooftop where the gunmen held out against hundreds of troops in the street and on the roofs of nearby apartment blocks, they said. Two of the wounded were reported in critical condition.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an interview Friday that one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis were captured in the raid.
U.S. personnel were not hurt in the raid, American officials said.
According to the U.S. grand jury indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, an alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, Binalshibh applied four times for a visa to enter the United States from May to October 2000, but was rebuffed each time.
After being denied a visa for the third time, Binalshibh allegedly began funneling money to associates inside the United States. He wired money to Moussaoui, to at least two hijackers and to a Florida flight school at which one of the hijackers was training, the indictment said.
Authorities believe Binalshibh fled Germany for Pakistan before Sept. 11. German authorities had issued an international arrest warrant for Binalshibh, whose whereabouts until now were unknown.
A correspondent for the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera claimed to have interviewed Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, at a secret location in Pakistan. The men admitted being central figures in the Sept. 11 plot, and claimed the U.S. Congress had been another target that day.
In Thursday's broadcast, al-Jazeera aired audio excerpts of the interview, in which two male voices attributed to Mohammed and Binalshibh revealed details about the buildup to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The voice purported to be Binalshibh's said the hijackers were instructed to take over the planes 15 minutes after takeoff. "That was the best time, and they were very brave," he said.
Two other members of the Hamburg cell, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, died in the suicide hijackings. Two additional members of the Hamburg cell did not take part in the hijackings and are still at large.
He also appeared in a videotape, released by the Justice Department several months ago, that was recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the home of al-Qaida's slain military chief, Mohammed Atef.
Associated Press writers John Solomon and Ron Fournier contributed to this story.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
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