Posted on 08/04/2004 3:13:51 AM PDT by kattracks
The Pakistani Al-Qaeda computer expert captured last month was one of the terror network's top planners with a five million dollar bounty on his head and had plotted to attack London's Heathrow airport, a senior security official said.Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, 25, alias Abu Talha, arrested in the eastern city of Lahore on July 12, "is in the top hierarchy of Al-Qaeda's external operations wing," a security official closely involved in Pakistan's latest Al-Qaeda swoop told AFP.
Khan had not only been creating websites and secret email codes for Al-Qaeda operatives to communicate with each other, he had also actively plotted terror attacks, the official said on condition of anonymity.
"He was involved in planning for attacks at Heathrow airport London some time ago and was wanted by US government," the official said, but was unable to say exactly when the Heathrow attack was planned.
The United States authorities had offered a five million dollar reward for his capture, he added.
Khan is one of at least 18 Al-Qaeda suspects swept up by Pakistani security forces since July 12, along with a key suspect in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, two South Africans and a Nigerian who was carrying coded messages.
US officials have said the information yielded in the capture of Khan and fellow Al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan led to the heightened terror alerts in New York, Newark and Washington.
The information included recently updated surveillance records of key financial institutions in those cities, photos, maps, and coded emails.
The African cell and around a dozen Pakistani supporters, who assisted with logistics for a fee of 200 dollars a month, were all captured in crowded cities in eastern Pakistan, far from the Al-Qaeda hideouts in the remote northwest tribal zone where most of the hunt for the militants has been focussed since late 2001.
Khan had joined Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and had undergone militant training at one of their camps in Afghanistan, the official said.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told reporters late Tuesday that a key Al-Qaeda operative with "head money on him running into millions of US dollars" was among the Al-Qaeda suspects rounded up in the past three weeks.
Hayat however refused to name him.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said information found on Khan and his computer records was "valuable" and had been shared with Pakistan's "friends," referring most likely to the United States.
US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the decision to raise the terror alert in US cities on Sunday was taken after unspecified information was received "from our allies in Pakistan."
"There is no evidence of recent (Al-Qaeda) surveillance, but again I would tell you that the information about the casings that we reviewed on Sunday have been updated as recently as January of this year," Ridge told reporters after visiting several of the financial institutions allegedly targeted by Al-Qaeda.
Referring to Osama bin Laden's terrorist group, he added: "We know this is an organization that plans in advance, that prepares."
Ridge's Department of Homeland Security on Sunday raised the color-coded terror threat level for several financial institutions in New York City and Washington from yellow, or "elevated," to orange, or "high" -- its second-highest level.
Remember that name.
THAT'S IT! NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!
(Gates takes off glasses, kicks the ass of pie-throwing anarchist protesters. Begins work on five-hundredth "Windows" operating system.)
* According to liberal lying presstitutes.
What's the reference to the "chief" alluding to?
It's beginning to look like real progress is being made in rolling up the big wheels in al Qaeda. Of course, it's all Bush's fault.
This arrest has the potential to severely interfere with Al-Qaeda's communications. If they can't coordinate or get paid, this arrest will be a major win.
It seems likely too that he knows others playing the same role in the organization that he has been - the focal point for communications, planning, pay roll, etc.
Chief Raja Munawar Hussein
See post 2 and 9.
He was directly threatened by Ghalani's fellow Qaeda operatives, who were stationed outside of that safe house.
Thanks..
Good capture. And we should change administrations in the middle of all this because?
There's no way that any sane person-with even a rudimentary grasp of foreign affairs-would be able to be cast their ballot for John Kerry in the upcoming presidential election.
Let's hope and pray that the Pakistani momentum continues today with more terrorist captures/kills.
He's probably singing like a canary and begging to be sent to Al Garaib!
Not enough of 'em are dead!
You see, that's the rub.
I find a certain irony in that the terrorists who want to move the world back to a 14th century Islamic theocracy are quick to adopt 21st century Western technology to accomplish their goals. It is also ironic that their use of this same technology is their undoing.
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