Sudanese authorities have arrested a suspected al-Qaeda leader whom US officials say fired a surface-to-air missile at a US aircraft at an American airbase in Saudi Arabia, The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.
A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the man as ”someone important.”
”Was this guy Zubaydah? No,” the official said, referring to Abu Zubaydah, the third-ranking leader in Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network who was captured in Pakistan in March and has been held in an undisclosed location since then.
”But this is someone important? Obviously, anybody who’s looking to fire down a US aircraft, we want off the streets,” the official told the Times.
Last month General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a spent casing from a Russian SA-7 missile had been found near the US Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, but did not confirm that it was used to target US aircraft.
The discovery led the Federal Bureau of Investigation to warn law-enforcement agencies in the United States to look out for attacks against US aircraft using such shoulder-fired missiles.
The Times said the Sudanese suspect was no longer believed to be in Sudanese custody but had not been handed over to US authorities.
The paper said the suspect appeared to be cooperating with investigators by disclosing details about his firing the missile.
The Pentagon announced on May 31 that US forces in Afghanistan had found 30 surface-to-air HN-5 (the Chinese version of the SA-7) in an arms cache in the southeastern part of the country.
The weapons are comparable to the US Stinger missiles that the Central Intelligence Agency supplied to Afghan rebels in their battle against Soviet forces.
–AFP
