More arrests in crackdown on al-Qaida cells

INTELLIGENCE from newly arrested al-Qaida suspects helped Pakistan to arrest five more members of Osama bin Laden’s network and a leader of a militant group accused of an attack on a Pakistani general, officials said yesterday.

This week’s arrests are the latest in a month-longterror crackdown that has netted about 30 fugitives, including a Pakistani computer expert for al-Qaida and a Tanzanian indicted in the 1998 attacks on US embassies in East Africa.

These successes have boosted the credentials of President General Pervez Musharraf as an ally of the United States in the war on terror - a cause given added urgency at home by recent attacks on Musharraf and prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz.

Pakistani officials would not name the five al-Qaida men arrested in the past two days. A senior official described them as “valuable targets” but refused to reveal their nationalities or roles within al-Qaida.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmedconfirmed the arrests, but gave no details.

There was no signauthorities are on the trail of bin Laden or his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, long believed to be hiding on the Pakistani-Afghan border.

Among those believed to have fled the border area was Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the Tanzanian arrested on July 25.

Khan and Ghailani’s computers contained photographs of potential targets in the United States and Britain that prompted a terror alert in the United States. Information from Khan is also believed to have led to a dozen arrests in London.