By The Washington Post and The Associated Press
KARACHI, Pakistan - Intelligence developed from the capture of a key al-Qaida lieutenant five months ago helped lead to the arrest Saturday of reputed al-Qaida operations chief and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Pakistani authorities said yesterday.
U.S. and Pakistani agents “were on (Mohammed’s) tail since the arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh, who was Mohammed’s right-hand man,” said a Pakistani intelligence official. “At least thrice in the past five months, we went close to Mohammed’s arrest. But each time, he either managed to dodge us or the luck helped him out,” he said.
Binalshibh, a former roommate of al-Qaida suicide pilot Mohammed Atta, has been described as the planner of several attacks on U.S. and other Western targets inside Pakistan. He was apprehended in this port city on the first anniversary of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“Ramzi showed the way to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,” the official said, “and Mohammed may lead the Americans to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri,” bin Laden’s top aide.
However, the official stressed that, to his knowledge, Binalshibh did not betray Mohammed while under interrogation but instead “provided incredible intelligence and human sources on al-Qaida and its operations to the Americans.”
That information apparently led to a near miss of Mohammed last month in a dusty border town and ignited a feverish chase fueled by communications intercepts and suspects’ interrogations, Pakistani security officials said yesterday.
Speaking on condition they not be named, the security officials said the trail heated up after authorities arrested an Egyptian man during a raid in the frontier city of Quetta on Feb. 14. Authorities had hoped to find Mohammed, but he was not there.
“At the time of that raid in Quetta the authorities were looking for Khalid Shaikh, but he escaped, and from there they followed him to Rawalpindi,” the senior government official said. “They got information from the man they picked up in Quetta and from phone calls until they tracked him down to Rawalpindi,” a city near Islamabad.
A top police official in Quetta said the arrested suspect changed his story many times during questioning, but finally identified himself as Abdul Rehman from Egypt. “Rehman admitted there was someone else with him, but he never said anything about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,” the official said.
A Pakistani intelligence official with knowledge of the case said U.S. communications experts helped Pakistani authorities trace an e-mail the arrested Quetta suspect sent to Pakistani Ahmed Abdul Qadus, one of the two men arrested at the same time as Mohammed. They immediately put him under surveillance, which led authorities to Mohammed, the official said.
Qadus’ family, while vehemently denying his involvement in terrorism, said he was alone at home with his wife and children when authorities burst in around 3 a.m. Saturday.
They said about 25 heavily armed agents, some in civilian clothes and some in blue uniforms, stormed into the house, rifling through drawers and pointing their guns at the children. They quickly took Qadus away and kept his wife and children under guard in a small bedroom as they searched the house, said Qadus’ sister Qudsia Khanum.
Agents, all of whom appeared to be Pakistani, took a computer hard drive, documents and U.S. dollars from the house, the family and security officials said. Khanum said the computer had no Internet hookup and her brother didn’t even know how to use it.
Interior Ministry spokesman Iftikhar Ahmed brushed off the family’s claims of innocence, saying Qadus, Mohammed and the third man were all arrested at the family’s home.
“There was a single operation,” Ahmed said. “Naturally, they will deny it. Everybody says they are innocent, and you can draw your own conclusion.”