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Clue about bin Attash came from Pearl probe
Thanks to Sharon for the headzup!
The first clue about the one-legged Al Qaida operative Waleed Mohammed bin Attash whom officials arrested on Tuesday, came when security agencies picked up a suspect Omar Dhobi in Karachi during investigations into the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. Sources say the existence of an Al Qaida cell run by Attash, who also uses the first name Khalid and uses the alias Tawfiq bin Attash or Tawfiq Attash Khallad, and was a highly respected figure in Osama bin Laden's network, came when police stumbled across a pair of crutches in the flat they raided while hunting for the killers of Pearl. Bin Attash escaped a police raid on a flat in Karachi on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, leaving behind his artificial limb. Since then security agencies had been searching for him.
"Any of you guys seen Walid bin Attash?"
"Tall guy, wears a turban? Got a wooden leg and carries an AK-47?"
"Yeah. That's him."
"Never heard of him." |
Ramzi bin Al Shibh was arrested hours before the raid on the Karachi flat and the sources said he had given information about the whereabouts of Attash. The official described the arrest of the gang as "another major body blow" to Al Qaida after the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Pakistani intelligence officials said the arrest of six suspected Al Qaida members, including Attash, were made in two simultaneous raids in Karachi. "A major catastrophe has been averted," said Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, chief of the Crisis Management Cell of the Interior Ministry. "It is another big victory for us." The other five men who were arrested are all Pakistanis, Interior Ministry Secretary Tasneem Noorani said by telephone from Islamabad. However one source indicated that one of the arrested men was a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
| "It's a fam'ly afa-a-a-air!" |
Karachi police remained tight-lipped on the issue but intelligence sources said the arrests were made from the posh Defence Housing Authority and Clifton neighbourhoods of Karachi. Police sources said the first lead came on Monday when police stopped a pickup truck loaded with explosives, which were hidden among sacks of potatoes.
| "Yes! We have-a no explosives! We have-a no explosives today!" |
Three Pakistanis were arrested â all of them affiliated with outlawed Pakistani militant groups. They led police to a fourth man, a Pakistani, who was picked up on Tuesday and who led police to bin Attash. Intelligence officials said more than 150 kilos of high quality explosives were recovered from the possession of bin Attash. They also seized 200 detonators and other electrical components as well as a truckload of sulphur, gun powder and urea â items that could be used to construct a bomb.
| That's not counting the explosives hidden with the tomatoes... |
American intelligence officials have said that bin Attash met with two of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in January the previous year. Both the hijackers, Khalid Al Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi, were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Bin Attash was in Afghanistan during much of the planning of the attacks and was believed to have moved to Pakistan by late 2002. A CIA officer once described bin Attash as a "major-league killer". Abd Al Rahim Al-Nashiri, Al Qaida's chief of operations for the Gulf and another suspected mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, is already in U.S.custody after being detained in an undisclosed foreign country late last year.
| Keeping the pressure up keeps the carnage down... |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-05-01 |
