July 15, 2002	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1423

WASHINGTON, July 14: One of Osama bin Laden’s top deputies, Abu Zubaydah, is being held at a US naval facility on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

Zubaydah is the highest-ranking Al Qaeda member known to have been taken into US custody during Washington’s war against terrorism triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000 people.

US officials, who have been interrogating him for months, have steadfastly refused to disclose where he was being held.

Before his arrest in Pakistan in April, Zubaydah, a 30-year-old Pakistani, was thought to be the new chief of operations of the Al Qaeda network, organizing remnants of the organization to carry out further attacks against the United States.

In April, FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters his capture had helped to prevent another attack.

Time, citing a source familiar with US anti-terror operations, said Zubaydah was recently transferred from a US Navy ship to the American base in Diego Garcia.

The magazine said US officials declined to discuss Zubaydah’s location.

Pakistani authorities captured Zubaydah during targeted raids in the towns of Faisalabad, Multan and Lahore.

US authorities have been interrogating him since his capture and have issued a series of warnings about possible Al Qaeda threats against US interests as a result of the information gained.

The information has led to a string of alerts about possible threats to the Statue of Liberty, apartment buildings, banks in the northeastern states, supermarkets and shopping malls.

Washington has vowed to bring Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders to justice for allegedly masterminding last year’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. So far many of them have eluded capture.—Reuters