Posted on 09/14/2002 8:42:00 AM PDT by HAL9000
KARACHI, Sept 14 (AFP) - Pakistani security forces aided by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have captured a prime suspect in the September 11 attacks after tracing satellite phone calls, officials and sources said Saturday.Ramzi bin al-Shaiba was among several Arabs arrested on Wednesday after a three-hour shootout at a Karachi apartment on the first anniversary of the attacks in the United States, said Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider.
His ministry said bin al-Shaiba was the second suspected senior member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network to be arrested in the city this week.
It said in a statement that 12 foreigners were held in two raids.
"Two out of those arrested are suspected to be high-level al-Qaeda men and their identity is being confirmed."
Pakistani intelligence sources said a leading al-Qaeda member whom they did not identify, another Arab and a Pakistani militant were detained in Karachi on Tuesday after a phone call was intercepted.
The arrests led to the apartment raid Wednesday in which bin al-Shaiba and other suspected al-Qaeda were held, the sources said.
Two Arab militants were killed in Wednesday's gunbattle.
Haider said bin al-Shaiba and the other detainees are in Pakistan.
"They are not with the police but our intelligence agencies are interrogating."
US government sources in Washington said earlier that bin al-Shaiba was in US custody at an undisclosed location.
Haider told reporters Pakistan would hand over the suspects if asked.
"Many of these people, if they are wanted by the US government, we are obliged to share this information.
"According to UN conventions we are bound to hand them over."
Asked whether there had been any extradition request, the minister said: "They may have asked for (this)."
President Pervez Musharraf hailed the arrest of bin al-Shaiba, seen as the second most important detention of an al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan following the capture of bin Laden's key lieutenant Abu Zubaydah in March.
"The arrest of these people is a proof that Pakistan is doing whatever is possible to curb terrorism," Pakistani journalists accompanying Musharraf quoted him as saying in New York.
The president described the arrests as "a major achievement by ISI (Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence)."
Musharraf told CNN Friday that 10 al-Qaeda suspects -- one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis -- were detained.
A Karachi police source said the ISI and police launched the raid following a tip-off from the FBI after the satellite phone call was traced.
Haider indicated the FBI had assisted in the operation. "As far as Internet and satellite facilities are concerned, we don't have this expertise and sometimes we do get tips and sometimes we ask for help."
Haider had told AFP earlier that FBI agents did not take part in Wednesday's operation.
"But the FBI do give us intelligence information. They have the kind of equipment with which they can locate any area and then they pass on the information to our security agencies."
In a recent interview with Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV, bin al-Shaiba said he was an active planner of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 3,000 people.
FBI director Robert Mueller said last year that bin al-Shaiba was to have been one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the air pirates.
He had enrolled in a flying school but was refused entry to the United States four times, Mueller said.
He was a roommate of Mohammed Atta, the hijackers' ringleader, when an al-Qaeda cell was active in the German city of Hamburg, US officials have said.
About the presence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Haider said: "Because of the unfriendly environment in Afghanistan they are crossing the border and trying to reach anywhere in Pakistan. But the good thing is that we normally hold them at our border.
"When they come deeper inside Pakistan our agencies and police trace them. It's only a matter of time."
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