May 4, 2002	Saturday	Safar 20, 1423

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WASHINGTON, May 3: Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider is due in Washington on Tuesday for a week-long visit to the United States to attend the first meeting of a joint working group on law enforcement.

The setting up of the group was announced during Gen Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Washington to meet President Bush in February. It is meant to improve coordination and interdiction in counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics.

Pakistan has already been working in close cooperation with US security agencies in the anti-terrorism campaign. The highest ranking Al Qaeda member arrested so far, Abu Zubaiydah, was held following a joint US-Pakistan intelligence operation in Faisalabad. Zubaiydah is now in American custody at an undisclosed location and under intense interrogation.

Haider is coming at the invitation of Attorney-General John Ashcroft, and the interior minister may also take up the case of Pakistanis detained in the post-Sept 11 swoop on Muslim and Arab immigrants.