Al-Qaida suspect 'giving valuable information'

A Tanzanian al-Qaida suspect wanted by the United States for the 1998 bombings at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was giving “very valuable” information, Pakistan’s interior minister said today.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani – who is on the FBI’s list of 22 most wanted terrorists, with a reward of up to €22.6m on his head – was arrested on Sunday in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujrat along with at least 15 other people, interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press.

He said Ghailani had given authorities useful information. Hayyat would not speculate on whether the suspect was planning any attacks in the United States or Pakistan.

“It would be premature to say anything about this, but obviously we have certain information, some very valuable and useful leads have been acquired,” he said.

A US official confirmed the capture of Ghailani – who has been charged in the United States over the embassy bombings – and said he may have useful information about terror cells or al-Qaida operatives, particularly in East Africa.

Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, who was convicted of the embassy bombings, told the FBI that Ghailani joined the rest of the East Africa al-Qaida cell in Nairobi the day before the attacks but flew to Pakistan on a Kenyan Airways flight before the bombs even exploded, according to a court transcript. That was the last known sighting of Ghailani until his arrest.

Hayyat said Ghailani had apparently been living in Pakistan for some time, but it was not clear how long, or how he entered the country. Gujrat is an industrial city surrounded by rice and sugar cane fields, not known as a haven for militancy or extremism.

“This is a big success,” Hayyat told Pakistan’s Geo television network. “As a result of our investigation, it became clear that he was a major figure wanted for the bombings.”

Hayyat said Ghailani was being held at an undisclosed location in Pakistan, but indicated he might be turned over to US authorities after investigations are completed. An intelligence official told The Associated Press he was being held in the eastern city of Lahore.

Ghailani, thought to be in his early 30s, was indicted on December 16, 1998 in New York for his alleged role in the embassy bombings, which killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans.

He is suspected of buying the truck used as the vehicle bomb in the attack on the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in which 12 people were killed.

He could face the death penalty if convicted of the charges, which include murder of US nationals outside the United States, conspiracy to murder US nationals outside the United States, and attack on a federal facility resulting in death.

Ghailani, who also goes by the names “Foopie”, “Fupi” and “Ahmed the Tanzanian”, was also one of seven wanted al-Qaida suspects that the FBI and the US Justice Department asked for help in finding in May to help avert a possible terror attack over the summer in the United States.

Pakistan had said earlier that some of the 16 suspects arrested Sunday were from Africa, but had not said whether they were linked to al-Qaida.

Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, in charge of co-ordinating Pakistan’s counter-terrorism effort, told AP that Ghailani’s Uzbek wife and several of his children were also arrested.

It was not clear if the suspects were planning any attacks in Pakistan or simply using the country to hide out.

“They had arrived in Gujrat recently but we don’t know where they came from or how they got into the country,” Cheema said.

The suspects were captured by police and intelligence agents during a raid on a house in Gujrat early Sunday after a 12-hour shootout.

The authorities also recovered two AK-47 rifles, plastic chemicals, two computers, computer diskettes, and a “large amount” of foreign currency at the home, where the suspects had moved last month.