Karachi, 27 April (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - The Pentagon today said it was holding one of al-Qaeda's most experienced operatives in detention at Guantánamo Bay following his capture as he tried to enter Iraq. The man was identified as Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and led efforts to attack US forces in the country after the 2001 invasion. Abd al-Hadi Al-Iraqi was initially the treasurer of Al-Qaeda and was based in South Waziristan and North Waziristan. Hadi used to supply money to Al-Qaeda operatives for international operations. In 2003, on the instructions of network number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri, he was part of an operational plan to kill General Pervez Musharraf but his role was mainly supplying money to the operatives involved in the plot. "Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qaida's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against western targets," the Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said on Friday.
| A logistics guy, excellent! He'll have much more info than a fighter |
| Likely he's been in the CIA's hands for awhile. They handed him over to the military at Gitmo after he'd been squeezed dry |
Abd al Hadi moved out of Waziristan after some major divergences emerged between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban over tactical issues, in particular the Pakistan TalibanÂ’s non-aggression pact with the Pakistan authorites.