March 02, 2003

Pakistan Hands Sept 11 Mastermind to U.S.

After a decade on the run, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was in U.S. custody on Sunday in what U.S. officials hailed as the biggest catch so far in the global war on terror.

Arrested by plainclothes Pakistani security agents who raided a house in the central city of Rawalpindi in a pre-dawn raid on Saturday, Mohammed was branded by Washington as one of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's "most senior and significant lieutenants."

Mohammed, whose arrest is a coup for the United States in its hunt for bin Laden and its global war on terror, was handed over to U.S. custody and taken to an undisclosed location within hours of his arrest, a senior government source said on Sunday.
[...]
It was not known whether the man described by counterterrorism experts as having been behind almost every major terror attack in the last decade had been taken to Afghanistan, a military base in Cuba where other suspected al Qaeda are held, a U.S. ship or flown to the United States or a third country.
[...]Analysts describe Mohammed, a Kuwaiti in his late 30s, 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.

"It was the work of Pakistani intelligence agencies... It is a big achievement. He is the kingpin of al Qaeda," said Rashid Qureshi, spokesman for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, insisting that Pakistani security had operated without U.S. aid.

The United States, under criticism for failing to arrest the top leaders of al Qaeda while focusing on a possible war on Iraq, was jubilant and took credit for the arrest.
[...]
Mohammed was reported to have narrowly evaded capture last September when Karachi police identified him as a man hit by a police sniper in a shootout with militants that netted al Qaeda operative Ahmed Omar Abdel Rahman, known as Binalshibh.
[...]
He was indicted in the United States in 1996 for his alleged role in a plot to blow up 12 American airliners over the Pacific.
[...]
He is an uncle of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, now serving a life sentence for involvement in the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center, later destroyed in the September 11 attacks.
[...]
He is suspected of involvement in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and the attack on a U.S. warship, the USS Cole, in Yemen in 2000.

A Pakistani newspaper linked him to the kidnapping and murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, saying investigators believed Mohammed was the man who slit Pearl's throat in front of a video camera after the journalist disappeared in Karachi in January 2002 while investigating a story on Islamic extremists.

Murdering dirtbag.
The authorities can do anything they want to this guy to get him to tell us what we want to know and then send him to meet those "virgins" in Hell.
Hope he's at Gitmo with his "friends," although that's too good for him.
I'm sure whatever his final fate is that it will be more humane and fair than the death and pain he caused the thousands of his victims...
But my congrats and appreciation go out to the CIA, Pervez Musharaf and the ISI in Pakistan for this major bust!
I think a lot of people all over the world including myself will sleep a little better knowing that this terrorist scum is in custody and not at large planning more death!
And a big raspberry goes out to all those Dimocrats who tried to say that the Bush Administration wasn't doing its utmost to round up Al Queda!