Spain arrests suspected al-Qaida financial chief

Spanish police have arrested an Algerian man suspected of being the financial chief in Spain of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network, the Spanish Interior Ministry said today.

Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said Ahmed Brahim, 57, may have been involved in the financing of the August 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, because he had a ‘‘close relationship’’ with one of the alleged founding members of al-Qaida, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim.