Pakistan questions Qaeda detainee

Pakistan is questioning a key operational chief from al Qaeda who knew Osama bin Laden and is suspected of involvement in attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf, intelligence sources said yesterday.

Qari Saifullah Akhtar was seized in Dubai on Friday and handed over to Pakistan the following day, the latest major al Qaeda scalp claimed in a month-long swoop by Pakistani intelligence agencies that has netted around 20 suspects so far.

Intelligence sources say Akhtar's capture was linked to information gleaned from top al Qaeda suspect, Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and Pakistani computer engineer Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, seized in separate raids last month.

But Pakistan's information minister has denied any link. Akhtar, described by the sources as al Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan, is suspected of links with two assassination attempts on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in December.

The prime suspect in the attacks, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, comes from the Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (Movement of Islam's Holy War) headed by Akhtar.

The intelligence sources, who all declined to be named, said Akhtar, in Afghanistan with bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar at the time of the US-led war in 2001, was being held by intelligence agencies in the Pakistani capital.

Pakistan says it is searching for four or five more important al Qaeda "planners", including an Egyptian known simply as Hamza and a Libyan called Abu Faraj.

"We are looking for four or five other planners of terror attacks," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters on Sunday.

"If we are successful in getting them, it will be a big blow to their network and there will be a sharp drop in terrorism."

Officials said the planners were being more actively sought than al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, believed by US authorities to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

Information from computer expert Khan led to the United States issuing a high alert at financial institutions against a possible al Qaeda attack and to the arrest of 12 al Qaeda suspects in Britain.

British newspapers said one of the 12 was believed to have been plotting an attack on Heathrow airport.

According to one Pakistani intelligence source, Khan was involved in a sting operation against al Qaeda when his name was confirmed by US officials, thereby compromising his cover.

Asked about the leak, Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told a regular news briefing: "This issue is being dealt with by the agencies." He did not elaborate.

The Pakistani swoop, which began a month ago, has dealt al Qaeda a major blow, although officials warn that the network has not been defeated and has the capability to carry out more attacks inside Pakistan and abroad.

Al Qaeda and allied radical Pakistani militant outfits are infuriated at Mr Musharraf's support for the US-led war on terror.

In the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday, at least eight people were killed and more than 50 wounded in a twin bomb attack outside a roadside restaurant owned by a large religious school next door.

No link to the al Qaeda crackdown has been established, but a spate of attacks in the teeming city of 14 million in recent months has been blamed on the network and local extremist groups.

Sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslim sect and minority Shi'ites is also common in Karachi.