Pakistan deals blow to terrorism

VITAL information gained from the arrests of a senior al-Qaida terrorist and a militant computer expert highlights the progress Pakistan is making in the fight against terrorism.

But it also illustrates that this Islamic nation remains a refuge for Osama bin Laden's group, where the most wanted men in the world can hide out for years.

"We know that al-Qaida is here. They have their sleeper cells in Pakistan, and we are trying to eliminate them," said Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat.

Intelligence agents found plans for new attacks in e-mails on the computer of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian arrested on July 25 after a 12-hour gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat.

Officials also are getting a wealth of information from the militant computer and communications expert who was arrested in an earlier raid in July. The man was sending messages using code words to al-Qaida suspects, according to a Pakistani intelligence official.

Pakistani officials would not speculate on whether the information from Ghailani and the computer expert is what prompted US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to issue the warning on Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, New Jersey.

The arrests of both men have raised hopes that more top suspects might soon be captured. Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed hiding in the mountainous no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But a second Pakistani intelligence official who was involved in the arrest of Ghailani cautioned against unrealistic expectations.

"Naturally, these interrogations help to gain an understanding of their network ... but that doesn't mean that we are closing in on bin Laden," he said.

Pakistan has arrested more than 550 al-Qaida suspects since the September 11 attacks, turning most of them over to the US. Among the higher-profile arrests are Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed all senior aides to bin Laden.

Despite the government's strong support of the US the nation is home to dozens of homegrown militant groups, some with roots in the Kashmir conflict, others that sprung up during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

They and their sympathisers have helped al-Qaida fugitives hide, sometimes for years.

Ghailani arrived in Pakistan on a Kenyan Airlines flight to Karachi on August 6, 1998, a day before the bombs went off in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans.

The official said they were believed linked to other al-Qaida suspects taken in recently, including a computer expert arrested on July 13 that has been identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, also known as Abu Talha.

Pakistani officials are also pointing to the arrest in June of Masrab Arochi, the nephew of former al-Qaida No 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as providing useful intelligence. Arochi was arrested in June along with nine others in raids in the southern city of Karachi.