US authorities prepared to take custody on Sunday of top al-Qaida lieutenant Ramzi bin al-Shaiba, a suspected planner of the September 11 attacks who was captured last week in a raid in Pakistan.
Bin al-Shaiba, one of the world’s most hunted men, was arrested in Karachi on Wednesday by Pakistani security forces accompanied by US FBI agents and detained in a raid in which at least two people were killed and several others were arrested, the sources said.
Another suspected top al-Qaida figure seized in Karachi was expected to be handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Pakistani intelligence agencies in close coordination with the FBI have been interrogating both men.
The identity of the second suspect has not been disclosed.
The officer said the interrogation of Bin al-Shaiba ”is in the final phase and he can be extradited to the US any time”.
According to The Washington Post, Pakistani police officers at the scene said one of the people killed in the firefight was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a Pakistani national born in Kuwait, who has been described as one of the top planners of the September 11 attacks.
Intelligence officials said the Arabs detained in last week’s raids were being held at a military facility near Karachi international airport.
About 3 000 people died as two hijacked airliners struck the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon outside Washington, and a fourth plummeted into a field in Pennsylvania.
The detentions were considered a major triumph for the United States in the week that it commemorated the first anniversary of the attacks, and US President George Bush said on Saturday that he welcomed the arrests.
”Thanks to the efforts of our folks and people in Pakistan, we captured one of the planners and organisers of the September 11 attack that murdered thousands of people, including Italians,” Bush said after talks at Camp David with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
”One by one, we’re hunting the killers down. We are relentless, we are strong, and we’re not going to stop.”
Bin al-Shaiba was also a roommate of Mohammed Atta, the hijackers’ ringleader, when an al-Qaida cell was active in the German city of Hamburg, US officials have said.
Germany could seek his extradition over the Hamburg connection, Interior Minister Otto Schily said on Saturday.
Bin al-Shaiba gave a recent interview to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television network boasting of his role planning the September 11 bombing and describing the elation of al-Qaida members who watched the destruction of the World Trade Center on television.
The detention of Bin al-Shaiba was one of two blows to al-Qaida in recent days, after New York police charged five people on Saturday with supporting the Osama bin Laden terror network.
A court in Buffalo, New York, arraigned Faysal Galab (26); Sahim Alwan (30); Yahya Goba (24); Shafel Mosed (25); and Yasein Taher (25), following their arrest Friday in nearby Lackawanna. All are US-born.
The attorney for western New York state, Michael Battle, said the men were charged with ”knowingly providing and attempting to provide material support and resources to the foreign terrorist organisation al-Qaida and conspiracy to do so.”
Authorities said the five were part of a ”terrorist cell” and had trained in the use of weapons at the al-Farooq camp outside Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In Washington, officials said the five detainees face up to 15 years in prison on the charges, adding that additional charges might be made.
”We do not fully know the intentions of those who were charged today, and our investigation is continuing. But as we go forward, to the extent that we can identify others who should be charged, they will be investigated and they will be charged,” said FBI Director Robert Mueller.
The deputy attorney general also noted that the investigation now will focus on any of the cell’s associates, although he said that every member of the cell in the United States was in custody. – Sapa-AFP