Posted on 07/14/2002 7:39:28 PM PDT by B-bone
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of Osama bin Laden's top deputies, Abu Zubaydah, is being held at a U.S. naval facility on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, Time magazine reported on Sunday.
Zubaydah is the highest-ranking al Qaeda member known to have been taken into U.S. custody during Washington's war against terrorism triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000 people.
U.S. officials, who have been interrogating him for months, have steadfastly refused to disclose where he was being held.
Before his arrest in Pakistan in April, Zubaydah, a 30-year-old Pakistani, was thought to be the new chief of operations of Islamic extremist bin Laden's al Qaeda network, organizing remnants of the organization to carry out further attacks against the United States.
In April, FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters his capture had helped to prevent another attack.
Time, citing a source familiar with U.S. anti-terror operations, said Zubaydah was recently transferred from a U.S. Navy ship to the American base in Diego Garcia.
The magazine said U.S. officials declined to discuss Zubaydah's location.
Pakistani authorities captured Zubaydah during targeted raids in the towns of Faisalabad, Multan and Lahore.
U.S. authorities have been interrogating him since his capture and have issued a series of warnings about possible al Qaeda threats against U.S. interests as a result of the information gained.
The information has led to a string of alerts about possible threats to the Statue of Liberty, apartment buildings, banks in the northeastern states, supermarkets and shopping malls.
Washington has vowed to bring bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders to justice for allegedly masterminding last year's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. So far many of them, including bin Laden, have eluded capture.
Guess not...
Time for O'Reilly's special...I'm out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.