FBI interrogate 9/11 mastermind in Pakistan

KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks and one of Osama bin Laden’s most senior lieutenants, was yesterday under interrogation by FBI agents at an unknown location in Pakistan, security officials said.

Pakistani officials said Mohammed was handed over to the US following his seizure in a pre-dawn raid in Rawalpindi on Saturday and was due to be flown early yesterday to the US-controlled air base at Bagram in Afghanistan.

But Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat insisted Mohammed was still in Pakistan yesterday and was being interrogated by Pakistani intelligence agents.

"He's still with us. We are interrogating him. We would like to keep him for a while," he said.

"There are certain procedures to be followed and we will follow those procedures before taking any decision on handing the suspect to the US."

But Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed indicated that Mohammed could be handed over to the US today.

"He is such a mastermind, if we felt that he is wanted by a country where he committed some crime, we should not take a big risk" of keeping him in Pakistan, he said.

Mr Ahmed confirmed that Mohammed was being jointly interrogated by Pakistani and US agencies. "Joint investigation is going on, we will know more tomorrow."

US President George W Bush was elated after being told of Mohammed's arrest, one of the biggest coups of the 18-month US-led war on terror.

"That's fantastic!" the White House quoted him as saying.

Mohammed, an uncle of Ramzi Yousef convicted over the 1993 bomb attack on New York's World Trade Center was believed to be in the process of regrouping the al-Qaida network in the aftermath of their rout from Afghanistan.

"This is a major breakthrough," said interior minister Hayat. "With this we hope to smash the presence of the terror network in Pakistan."

Mohammed, born to Pakistani parents but claiming several Arab nationalities including Kuwaiti, is considered number three in the al-Qaeda network after bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.

His capture "amounts to breaking the backbone of whatever remains of the al-Qaida operational structure", a Pakistani official said.

On the FBI list of 22 most wanted terrorists, Mohammed is alleged to have been a key planner of the September 11 attacks.

He was captured with two other men, Pakistani Ahmed Abdul Qudoos and an unnamed Middle Eastern man, both activists of the Jamaat-i-Islami political party, in a raid at around 3am Saturday by the FBI in the northern city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

Mohammed had narrowly eluded Pakistani and US intelligence agents in several raids including one last week in the southwestern city of Quetta.