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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Pakistan seeking 2 North Africans |
| 2004-08-06 |
| Pakistan is hunting two top North African al-Qaeda "masterminds" who head one of the terror network's cells, officials said on Friday, after cracking a major worldwide al-Qaeda wing plotting new attacks in Britain and the United States. The men, identified as Libyan national Abu Farj and an Egyptian known only as Hamza, are close associates of senior al-Qaeda operatives arrested in major anti-terror swoops in Pakistan since July 12. Abu Faraj is the head of North African ops, whereas Abu Hamza is one of KSM's lieutenants.Farj and Hamza "are extremely important al-Qaeda operatives and they are hiding in Pakistan," a senior security official said, on condition of anonymity. "We are now desperately searching for these two al-Qaeda masterminds with the help of information obtained from the already captured al-Qaeda operatives." Farj and Hamza both had a $5-million (about R30-million) bounty on their heads, offered by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Pakistani official said the plots were for attacks "in coming months." Their arrests had broken a major al-Qaeda wing planning attacks by al-Qaeda sleeper cells on Britain and the US in coming months, he said. Computer files and email records seized from Ghailani and Khan showed they were communicating with al-Qaeda operatives from the US to south Asia to south-east Asia, to plan imminent attacks in Britain and the United States. "Their email records showed correspondence between groups in the United Kingdom, the US, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nepal, in which they were exchanging information about targets to be attacked in coming months," the official said. "Our information so far is that the targets were in America and the UK." The official declined to say what sort of attacks were being planned, nor would he identify the targets. The computer records showed that the Pakistan-based wing of al-Qaeda was "in regular touch with al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US, Britain, Indonesia, Malaysia, and some South Asian countries." The capture of senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Eisa Al Hindi in Britain was an "important blow" to the network's planning capabilities, he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |