Official: Key Al Qaeda Suspect Still in Pakistan

Yahoo News (Reuters) ^ | 3./2/2003 | Reuters

[Tunehead54]

ISLAMABAD (Reuters)

Pakistan's interior minister denied reports on Sunday that suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been handed over to the United States and said he was still in Pakistan.

President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman Rashid Qureshi also said Mohammed was in Pakistan and was being jointly interrogated by Pakistani and U.S. agents.

Earlier, a government official who did not want to be identified said Khalid had been handed over to U.S. custody shortly after his arrest, along with two other al Qaeda suspects, in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Saturday.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat denied this:

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in the custody of Pakistan's law enforcement agencies and until we have satisfied ourselves, after the interrogation process, of the nature of his activities in Pakistan, there is no question of handing him over to anyone."

Asked if he was still in Pakistan, Hayat replied: "He's very much here."

"We have to determine our own security concerns, establish what sort of network he was operating, because we have been facing very serious problems of late," he said.

"Only when Khalid's country approaches us and makes a formal request for his extradition, only then will the Pakistani government hand him over."

Mohammed was born in Kuwait in 1965, but his parents were from Pakistan's Baluchistan province.

Qureshi said Mohammed's fate would depend on the outcome of the interrogation.

"The procedure is that whenever a foreigner is caught for suspected links to al Qaeda, a joint team questions him so that both sides can coordinate with each other," he said.

Analysts describe Mohammed as a pivotal figure in al Qaeda who vetted all its recruits and who may know the whereabouts of both bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, fugitive leader of Afghanistan's former Taliban government.

The United States, under criticism for failing to arrest the top leaders of al Qaeda while focusing on a possible war on Iraq, was elated by news of Khalid's arrest.

It claimed joint credit for the detention and described Khalid as "a key al Qaeda planner and the mastermind of the September 11 attacks."

[Ethyl]

I think it is high time we started offering "OUR" foriegn aid by public referendum, ALL foriegn aid. If the Turks are wondering where they will now come up with the money to shore up their ailing economy, the money they thought they could blackmail from us, wait until there is NO aid at all. The Canadians can kiss the monies we send them each year goodbye also, as can France, Germany, Belgium, and any other of a multitude of "America bashers". We give aid not only as a means of diplomatic persuation, we give it out of our own sense of decencey. When you insult us, ie:Canada, you can expect NOTHING!!!


If only our political leaders thought as you do. It will never happen, we will still give them mega bucks, which MAKES ME SICK! Stop foreign aid, let's give it to America, then cut the taxes, the foreign aid is one reason our taxes are soo high, why support Suddan???????? LOWER MY TAXES NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!