Moroccans arrest terrorist recruiter

Moroccan authorities have arrested a senior al-Qaida recruiter known as "The Bear".

US officials say he is suspected of plotting attacks against Western interests in Morocco.

Before September 11, Al-Haili is said to have ran some of bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.

During the US-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, he is alleged to have helped evacuate al-Qaida operatives from the country.

It is not clear when the Saudi, who weighs more than 300 pounds earning him the nickname The Bear, came to Morocco.

He is a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, the senior al-Qaida operations chief whom US authorities captured in Pakistan in March.

Officials say that like Abu Zubaydah, al-Haili was central to al-Qaida's international recruiting network, accepting recruits into training and placing them in overseas cells.

Al-Haili has not been tied to specific past al-Qaida terrorist operations, but officials say his knowledge of al-Qaida operations and terrorist cells will be useful to interrogators.

US authorities are believed to have access to whatever information al-Haili is providing his interrogators.

His arrest is the latest in a series of breaks in the US war on terrorism, both in Morocco and elsewhere.