The Interior Ministry has reissued an advisory to some cabinet members about a possible threat from Al Qaeda-linked militants, a government official said on Friday. The ministry said in a letter that it had information that "terrorist elements" might try to kidnap or attack some ministers, civil servants or army officers. A similar warning was issued last September. The cabinet members on top of the hit list were said to be Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Special Education and Social Development Minister Zobeida Jalal and Kashmir Affairs Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat, he said.Meanwhile, the US on Friday advertised rewards in a top Pakistani daily for information leading to the capture of 14 Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders including Osama Bin Laden and Mulla Omar. The half-page advert in the Urdu language newspaper Jang, placed by the US Embassy in Islamabad, features mug shots of the wanted men and said anyone giving details to a special email address or hotlines would remain anonymous. The US has offered up to $25 million each for 9/11 mastermind Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, while Taliban chief Omar has a $10 million price on his head. The unusual step represents a renewed effort to track down the main Al Qaeda hierarchy, amid fears that Bin Laden's trail has gone cold three years after the Taliban were ousted in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The US Embassy said in a statement that the ad was the first in a series appearing in newspapers and on radio and television, and part of what it called the ongoing war against terrorism. It was designed to promote awareness of the US Rewards for Justice programme and to "urge people to bring some of the most wanted international terrorists to justice". Jang, with a circulation of nearly 3 million, is also widely read in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas along the border, where Pakistani troops have conducted operations since late 2003 to capture or kill Al Qaeda fugitives. The other suspects in the US advertisement each carry a reward of $5 million for 'terrorist' activities such as making explosives, training and methods of using poison for terror attacks. Similar ads have appeared in publications as far ranging as The New York Times, Paris Match, Germany's Die Welt, Pravda in Russia and the Egyptian paper Al Hayat, the embassy statement said.