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Pakistan confirms arrest al-Qaeda computer expert
Pakistani authorities have arrested an Al-Qaeda-linked computer engineer and discovered significant information on his computer and email, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said. "We've arrested a computer mastermind. He is linked to Al-Qaeda. We got information from computer and email," Rashid told AFP Monday, amid US press reports that the information outlined fresh plans to attack financial institutions in New York and Washington.
| If he was a "mastermind", you wouldn't have been able to crack his hard-drive so easy. |
Refusing to reveal the computer expert's nationality, the minister said he was captured either in the eastern city of Lahore or nearby industrial town Gujrat, where a key Al-Qaeda suspect in the 1998 east Africa bombings was picked up July 25. The capture was around the same time as the arrest of Tanzanian-born Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Rashid said, but would not specify the date. The arrest of Ghailani, which was only announced late on July 29, also yielded valuable information, the minister said. Ghailani is wanted for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
| But his Mom sez he's innocent, so they should let him go. Who would know better than his Mom? |
Senior US officials told the New York Times and Washington Post that the information found in Pakistan late July led to the latest terror alert in the United States.
| Ok, that kicks the credibility up a notch. |
The Washington Post said documents uncovered in Ghailani's hideout in Gujrat show specific information on the Citigroup Center in Manhattan, the World Bank in Washington and other financial institutions, including parking arrangements and whether guards are armed. The documents also describe the use of phony couriers and delivery people to get inside the buildings to collect information, intelligence officials told the Post. The Times said the computer expert, whom it identified as Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, 25, used and managed an Al-Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages. A senior US intelligence official told the newspaper the information was more detailed than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work. The contents of the evidence was urgently relayed to Washington Friday afternoon, which immediately increased the importance of other intelligence gathered over the past weeks from Al-Qaeda suspects held in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the Times reported.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-08-02 |
