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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan Questions al-Qaida Suspects |
| 2003-10-27 |
| Pakistan on Monday questioned three suspected al-Qaida operatives captured over the weekend, but the interior minister said a top fugitive financier for the terror network was not among them. Damm Police have been searching for Ahmad Said al-Kadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen, since he escaped a major military operation on Oct. 2 in the South Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. On Saturday, police raided a home in Faisalabad, an industrial city in the eastern province of Punjab, and said they captured a suspect believed to be a senior al-Qaida leader, prompting speculation he might be the fugitive financier. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat confirmed Monday that intelligence services have three suspected al-Qaida members- all from Yemen - caught in Faisalabad, "but none of them is an important al-Qaida leader." Just your run-of-the-mill Yemeni thugs. The raid in Faisalabad on Saturday was based on information from two men from Yemen arrested earlier in the week, intelligence officials said. One, identified earlier as Abu Saleh, was believed to have been an aide of Abu Zubaydah, a senior bin Laden lieutenant who was arrested in Faisalabad in March 2002. The interior minister said he could not confirm the identity of any of the suspects. Several Pakistanis also were taken into custody for suspected al-Qaida links, he said. Trained al-Qaida operatives are adept at concealing their true names under interrogation, Hayyat said. "It will take some time to confirm their identify." I’ll bet he was twirling his moustache when he said that. Two intelligence officials said the captives were were giving "valuable information." One body part at a time. |
| Posted by:Steve |