http://www.msnbc.com/news/879289.asp?0cv=CA00
Bin Laden sons reportedly arrested
Arrests occurred after
gunbattle in Afghanistan,
Pakistani official tells AP
March 6 — NBC has been told the U.S. military and CIA are gearing up for a fresh search operation for Osama bin Laden in southwestern Pakistan, based on new information from suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.
BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
March 7 — Two of Osama bin Laden’s sons have been arrested in southeastern Afghanistan, a Pakistani provincial official said Friday. The arrests were reported as Pakistani and U.S. forces were conducting military operations near the mountainous borders with Afghanistan and Iran amid persistent reports that the fugitive al-Qaida leader is hiding out in the area.
PAKISTAN’S PROVINCIAL HOME minister Sanaullah Zehri told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that the sons were arrested in the Rabat area in Afghanistan. He did not identify the sons, but said seven other al-Qaida men were killed in the operation.
The report could not be immediately confirmed. U.S. intelligence officials said they had no information to substaniate the report.
Earlier, a Pakistan military source told the AP that joint Pakistani and U.S. forces have been searching for bin Laden and his son, Saad, since the weekend along the 350-mile stretch of border from the Baluchistan town of Chaman to the Iranian border.
Publicly, both U.S. and Pakistani officials were playing down the notion that the operations were specifically aimed at capturing bin Laden. But some Pakistani military officials and reports from the area suggested that a serious effort was being made to apprehend the world’s most wanted terrorist.
The Associated Press, quoting a Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least two raids have been carried out in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan region based on information obtained from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed since his capture last weekend. There were no major arrests from the raids, the official said.
MEETING WITH BIN LADEN
The search came amid reports that Mohammed, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 terror attacks, told his captors shortly after his capture that he met with bin Laden last month. The meeting took place somewhere in Baluchistan or farther north along the border, a Pakistani intelligence official who was among the Pakistani and CIA agents who interrogated Mohammed told the AP.
In addition to putting more forces on the ground, authorities are seeking to enlist villagers in the area. Residents in Chaman said U.S. aircraft had frequently swarmed overhead since the weekend, dropping Pashtu-language leaflets on both sides of the border reminding them of the $25 million reward for bin Laden’s capture.
Officials with Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps told Reuters that “very few Americans†were participating in the operations, but there were indications that the U.S. presence was heavier than that.
Villagers contacted in Dal Bandin, 170 miles south of the Baluchistan capital of Quetta, said two military aircraft landed at their small airstrip on Thursday and American forces got off. There was no confirmation from the U.S. or Pakistani military.
U.S. special forces and Pakistani soldiers also were active farther north along the border, trying to flush out Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives in South Waziristan, in the North West Frontier province.
Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesman for Pakistan’s Interior Department, who is overseeing the search operations in the tribal areas of the Northwestern region of Pakistan, confirmed in an interview by NBC News on Friday that CIA personnel also are on the ground, though he said the Pakistani government had not requested reinforcements.
RUMORS OF CAPTURE DENIED
The swirl activity spawned numerous rumors that bin Laden or another senior al-Qaida leader had been captured had been captured, but officials in Washington and in Pakistan said the reports were groundless.
And they insisted Pakistani and U.S. officials that the new operations were not specifically targeting bin Laden.
Pakistani President President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an interview broadcast Friday that bin Laden apparently is alive, but is probably not in Pakistan.
“He wouldn’t be hiding alone or with one person,†he said. “... He would be moving with a large number of bodyguards. He can’t be in Pakistan.â€
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called reports of a military operation in pursuit of bin Laden “totally false.â€
“The people who have given this statement are totally wrong,†he told reporters. “We don’t know anything.â€
In Washington, a U.S. government official told NBC News that bin Laden probably is somewhere in Pakistan. But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there is no solid evidence that he is in Baluchistan.
Saturday’s arrest of Mohammed — said to be No. 3 in the al-Qaida hierarchy — in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, near the capital of Islamabad, also triggered a whirlwind of activity in the United States. Officials told news organizations on Thursday that the FBI is tracking about a dozen individuals whose names were found in material seized with the suspect and are believed to be in the United States.
U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity said that the number of suspected al-Qaida operatives thought to be in the United States was about 10 but that the number was “somewhat fluid†as new leads were pursued.
SUSPECTS UNDER SURVEILLANCE
The Associated Press, quoting an unidentified government official, put the number of suspected terrorists at “about 12†and indicated that all of them were under surveillance. The official said authorities were hoping that continued tracking of the suspects might lead authorities to other al-Qaida figures.
None of the suspects had been arrested, the official said.
It was not clear whether the information on bin Laden or other possible al-Qaida operatives was being provided willingly by Mohammed, who is being questioned at an undisclosed location outside Pakistan.
On Wednesday, U.S. officials told NBC News that Mohammed had not cooperated with his captors since he was whisked out of Pakistan shortly after his arrest.
One official said Mohammed had been “spouting Koranic verses†— writings from the Muslim holy book — but not responding to his captors’ queries.
Still, his capture was a signal victory in the U.S. campaign against terrorists, U.S. officials from President Bush on down proclaimed.
“Thanks to the hard work of American and Pakistani officials, we captured the mastermind of the September 11th attacks against our nation,†Bush said Thursday night at a news conference in Washington.
“Khalid Shaikh Mohammed conceived and planned the hijackings and directed the actions of the hijackers. We believe his capture will further disrupt the terror network and their planning for additional attacks.â€
FBI WARNING
U.S. officials said Wednesday that experts from the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency were examining laptop computers, at least one cellular phone and written materials — including an address book — seized during Saturday’s raid of a home in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
The FBI warned that the apprehension of Mohammed could spur other al-Qaida members to take action.
In its weekly memo sent to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, the bureau warned that Mohammed’s arrest “may accelerate execution of any operational planning already under way, as operatives seek to carry out attacks before the information obtained through Mohammed’s capture can be used to undermine operational security.â€
U.S. officials told NBC News that the warning was based on “analysis†of the situation, rather than information about any plans for imminent attacks.
In an e-mail to FBI Director Robert Mueller and to The New York Times, Rowley said the FBI will not be able to stem terrorism in the wake of a U.S. attack on Iraq.
There was renewed criticism Thursday of the war on terrorism from Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent who last year criticized FBI leadership for failing to understand all the leads it was collecting.
In an e-mail sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller and to The New York Times, Rowley said the FBI would not be able to stem what she called a flood of terrorism that would result from a U.S. attack on Iraq.
In the e-mail, Rowley faulted the FBI for not aggressively moving to interrogate Zacarias Moussaoui — accused of conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers — or convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid. And she suggested that Mueller tell Bush that Saddam Hussein was a lot like David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, who died in the fiery end near Waco, Texas, in 1993. The lesson, Rowley said, is that standoffs are best resolved peacefully.
OTHERS ARRESTED
In addition to Mohammed and numerous other deadly al-Qaida operations, Pakistani police and CIA agents also seized Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, allegedly the main money man behind the Sept. 11 operation, and a Pakistani man named Ahmed Abdul Qadus.
U.S. officials also revealed this week that Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman, allegedly a senior al-Qaida operative and the son of the blind Egyptian sheik accused of inspiring the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was arrested in Quetta, Pakistan, several weeks before Saturday’s raid.
The officials said Abdel-Rahman ran a training camp in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks and had a role in operational planning.
His father, Omar Abdel-Rahman, is in a U.S. prison for a 1994 plot to bomb landmarks around New York.
Qadus, a member of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamaat-e-Islami party, appeared briefly Wednesday before a judge in Islamabad, who ordered him turned over to police for four days of questioning.
Qadus’ family members denied that he sheltered Mohammed and al-Hawsawi or was connected to al-Qaida.bin Laden
MOHAMMED’S SEPT. 11 ROLE
U.S. officials believe that Mohammed recruited and directed the 19 hijackers who flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing about 3,000 people.
He and alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh gave an interview to an al-Jazeera TV reporter in which they claimed to have orchestrated what they called “the martyrdom operation inside America.â€
He also is believed to be the mastermind of the failed “Operation Bojinka†plot in 1993, which envisioned blowing 12 commercial airliners out of the sky on a single day; the successful attacks in 1998 on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Tunisia.
Mohammed is the first person on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist suspects list to be arrested. The U.S. government was offering up to $25 million for information leading to his capture.
Mohammed is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center conspiracy. Mohammed’s older brother also is a member of al-Qaida, and another brother died in Pakistan when a bomb he was making exploded.
Bin Laden sons reportedly arrested
Arrests occurred after
gunbattle in Afghanistan,
Pakistani official tells AP
March 6 — NBC has been told the U.S. military and CIA are gearing up for a fresh search operation for Osama bin Laden in southwestern Pakistan, based on new information from suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.
BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
March 7 — Two of Osama bin Laden’s sons have been arrested in southeastern Afghanistan, a Pakistani provincial official said Friday. The arrests were reported as Pakistani and U.S. forces were conducting military operations near the mountainous borders with Afghanistan and Iran amid persistent reports that the fugitive al-Qaida leader is hiding out in the area.
PAKISTAN’S PROVINCIAL HOME minister Sanaullah Zehri told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that the sons were arrested in the Rabat area in Afghanistan. He did not identify the sons, but said seven other al-Qaida men were killed in the operation.
The report could not be immediately confirmed. U.S. intelligence officials said they had no information to substaniate the report.
Earlier, a Pakistan military source told the AP that joint Pakistani and U.S. forces have been searching for bin Laden and his son, Saad, since the weekend along the 350-mile stretch of border from the Baluchistan town of Chaman to the Iranian border.
Publicly, both U.S. and Pakistani officials were playing down the notion that the operations were specifically aimed at capturing bin Laden. But some Pakistani military officials and reports from the area suggested that a serious effort was being made to apprehend the world’s most wanted terrorist.
The Associated Press, quoting a Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least two raids have been carried out in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan region based on information obtained from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed since his capture last weekend. There were no major arrests from the raids, the official said.
MEETING WITH BIN LADEN
The search came amid reports that Mohammed, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 terror attacks, told his captors shortly after his capture that he met with bin Laden last month. The meeting took place somewhere in Baluchistan or farther north along the border, a Pakistani intelligence official who was among the Pakistani and CIA agents who interrogated Mohammed told the AP.
In addition to putting more forces on the ground, authorities are seeking to enlist villagers in the area. Residents in Chaman said U.S. aircraft had frequently swarmed overhead since the weekend, dropping Pashtu-language leaflets on both sides of the border reminding them of the $25 million reward for bin Laden’s capture.
Officials with Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps told Reuters that “very few Americans†were participating in the operations, but there were indications that the U.S. presence was heavier than that.
Villagers contacted in Dal Bandin, 170 miles south of the Baluchistan capital of Quetta, said two military aircraft landed at their small airstrip on Thursday and American forces got off. There was no confirmation from the U.S. or Pakistani military.
U.S. special forces and Pakistani soldiers also were active farther north along the border, trying to flush out Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives in South Waziristan, in the North West Frontier province.
Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesman for Pakistan’s Interior Department, who is overseeing the search operations in the tribal areas of the Northwestern region of Pakistan, confirmed in an interview by NBC News on Friday that CIA personnel also are on the ground, though he said the Pakistani government had not requested reinforcements.
RUMORS OF CAPTURE DENIED
The swirl activity spawned numerous rumors that bin Laden or another senior al-Qaida leader had been captured had been captured, but officials in Washington and in Pakistan said the reports were groundless.
And they insisted Pakistani and U.S. officials that the new operations were not specifically targeting bin Laden.
Pakistani President President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an interview broadcast Friday that bin Laden apparently is alive, but is probably not in Pakistan.
“He wouldn’t be hiding alone or with one person,†he said. “... He would be moving with a large number of bodyguards. He can’t be in Pakistan.â€
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called reports of a military operation in pursuit of bin Laden “totally false.â€
“The people who have given this statement are totally wrong,†he told reporters. “We don’t know anything.â€
In Washington, a U.S. government official told NBC News that bin Laden probably is somewhere in Pakistan. But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there is no solid evidence that he is in Baluchistan.
Saturday’s arrest of Mohammed — said to be No. 3 in the al-Qaida hierarchy — in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, near the capital of Islamabad, also triggered a whirlwind of activity in the United States. Officials told news organizations on Thursday that the FBI is tracking about a dozen individuals whose names were found in material seized with the suspect and are believed to be in the United States.
U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity said that the number of suspected al-Qaida operatives thought to be in the United States was about 10 but that the number was “somewhat fluid†as new leads were pursued.
SUSPECTS UNDER SURVEILLANCE
The Associated Press, quoting an unidentified government official, put the number of suspected terrorists at “about 12†and indicated that all of them were under surveillance. The official said authorities were hoping that continued tracking of the suspects might lead authorities to other al-Qaida figures.
None of the suspects had been arrested, the official said.
It was not clear whether the information on bin Laden or other possible al-Qaida operatives was being provided willingly by Mohammed, who is being questioned at an undisclosed location outside Pakistan.
On Wednesday, U.S. officials told NBC News that Mohammed had not cooperated with his captors since he was whisked out of Pakistan shortly after his arrest.
One official said Mohammed had been “spouting Koranic verses†— writings from the Muslim holy book — but not responding to his captors’ queries.
Still, his capture was a signal victory in the U.S. campaign against terrorists, U.S. officials from President Bush on down proclaimed.
“Thanks to the hard work of American and Pakistani officials, we captured the mastermind of the September 11th attacks against our nation,†Bush said Thursday night at a news conference in Washington.
“Khalid Shaikh Mohammed conceived and planned the hijackings and directed the actions of the hijackers. We believe his capture will further disrupt the terror network and their planning for additional attacks.â€
FBI WARNING
U.S. officials said Wednesday that experts from the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency were examining laptop computers, at least one cellular phone and written materials — including an address book — seized during Saturday’s raid of a home in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
The FBI warned that the apprehension of Mohammed could spur other al-Qaida members to take action.
In its weekly memo sent to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, the bureau warned that Mohammed’s arrest “may accelerate execution of any operational planning already under way, as operatives seek to carry out attacks before the information obtained through Mohammed’s capture can be used to undermine operational security.â€
U.S. officials told NBC News that the warning was based on “analysis†of the situation, rather than information about any plans for imminent attacks.
In an e-mail to FBI Director Robert Mueller and to The New York Times, Rowley said the FBI will not be able to stem terrorism in the wake of a U.S. attack on Iraq.
There was renewed criticism Thursday of the war on terrorism from Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent who last year criticized FBI leadership for failing to understand all the leads it was collecting.
In an e-mail sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller and to The New York Times, Rowley said the FBI would not be able to stem what she called a flood of terrorism that would result from a U.S. attack on Iraq.
In the e-mail, Rowley faulted the FBI for not aggressively moving to interrogate Zacarias Moussaoui — accused of conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers — or convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid. And she suggested that Mueller tell Bush that Saddam Hussein was a lot like David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, who died in the fiery end near Waco, Texas, in 1993. The lesson, Rowley said, is that standoffs are best resolved peacefully.
OTHERS ARRESTED
In addition to Mohammed and numerous other deadly al-Qaida operations, Pakistani police and CIA agents also seized Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, allegedly the main money man behind the Sept. 11 operation, and a Pakistani man named Ahmed Abdul Qadus.
U.S. officials also revealed this week that Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman, allegedly a senior al-Qaida operative and the son of the blind Egyptian sheik accused of inspiring the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was arrested in Quetta, Pakistan, several weeks before Saturday’s raid.
The officials said Abdel-Rahman ran a training camp in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks and had a role in operational planning.
His father, Omar Abdel-Rahman, is in a U.S. prison for a 1994 plot to bomb landmarks around New York.
Qadus, a member of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamaat-e-Islami party, appeared briefly Wednesday before a judge in Islamabad, who ordered him turned over to police for four days of questioning.
Qadus’ family members denied that he sheltered Mohammed and al-Hawsawi or was connected to al-Qaida.bin Laden
MOHAMMED’S SEPT. 11 ROLE
U.S. officials believe that Mohammed recruited and directed the 19 hijackers who flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing about 3,000 people.
He and alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh gave an interview to an al-Jazeera TV reporter in which they claimed to have orchestrated what they called “the martyrdom operation inside America.â€
He also is believed to be the mastermind of the failed “Operation Bojinka†plot in 1993, which envisioned blowing 12 commercial airliners out of the sky on a single day; the successful attacks in 1998 on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Tunisia.
Mohammed is the first person on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist suspects list to be arrested. The U.S. government was offering up to $25 million for information leading to his capture.
Mohammed is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center conspiracy. Mohammed’s older brother also is a member of al-Qaida, and another brother died in Pakistan when a bomb he was making exploded.
