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| India-Pakistan |
| More on Qaeda arrest |
| 2003-03-15 |
| Pakistani authorities arrested a suspected senior al-Qaeda operative in the eastern city of Lahore today, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. The suspect, Yassir al-Jaziri, also known as Abu Yassir al-Jaziri, was among the top seven men wanted by the United States, Ahmed told The Associated Press, although his name does not appear on the FBI most-wanted terrorist list. "Al-Jaziri is definitely an important al-Qaeda leader and this is all I can say at this point," Pakistan's Interior Ministry secretary Tasneem Noorani said. Court documents in which al-Jaziri is named describe him as a dual nationality Algerian Moroccan, responsible for al-Qaeda's business interests. But it wasn't clear where al-Jaziri stood in the hierarchy of the terror network. "We understand that he is among those al-Qaeda leaders wanted by the United States," he said, adding that the American FBI assisted in the apprehension of al-Jaziri. The nature of that assistance was not immediately clear. Al-Jaziri was arrested in the posh Gulburg neighbourhood of Lahore by Pakistani security agencies, Ahmed said. The Pakistani family with whom al-Jaziri was staying with was being interrogated but Ahmed said they were not under arrest at this time. Al-Jaziri's name surfaced last month at a court hearing in Lahore for Dr Ahmed Javed Khawaja, a naturalised American doctor, who is in police custody for alleged links with al-Qaeda. In court documents, Khawaja is said to have been an associate of al-Jaziri's as well as two other wanted al-Qaeda men - Sheikh Said al-Misri and Abu Faraj. The documents describe al-Misri as an Egyptian alleged to be al-Qaeda's financial chief and Faraj as head of al-Qaeda's North African network and a deputy to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Ahmed told the AP that information garnered from Mohammed led to the arrest of al-Jaziri. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #1 I thought Sheikh Saiid al-Masri (Said al-Misri in this article) was picked up with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2003-03-16 00:24:38 |