WASHINGTON, Aug 6: The CIA is providing millions of dollars and the NSA is gathering and processing electronic intercepts for carrying out a large-scale operation against Al Qaeda in Waziristan tribal region and other areas of Pakistan, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
In a front page article, based on reports by the newspaper's correspondents in Pakistan, Britain and the United States, the Post said that sophisticated American eavesdropping technology and computerized identification systems allowed Pakistani authorities to catch more than 100 terror suspects during the past few weeks.
"The operation is being paid for with millions of dollars from the CIA, supported with (electronic surveillance) equipment from the National Security Agency and carried out by Pakistani soldiers and intelligence units," the report said.
Eighteen of more than 100 suspects now in Pakistan's custody have been identified as Al Qaeda operatives, the report said. US military and intelligence officials told the Post some of the detainees were wanted in the United States for their involvement in attacks on US targets across the world.
The heightened security alerts in the United States came after data seized in Pakistan suggested that the group was targeting five financial buildings in New York, Washington and Newark.
The Post quoted a Pakistani intelligence official as saying: "US assistance comes in the shape of incredible data and analysis based on electronic and signal intercepts of Al Qaeda suspects all over the world.
Their information is also based upon the detailed debriefing of the arrested suspects and a scientific follow-up of these debriefings held at unidentified locations."
In London, Scotland Yard announced the arrest of Babar Ahmad, a British subject of Pakistani descent, on a US extradition request from the US District Court in Connecticut.
Ahmad, 30, is accused of soliciting funds and property through the Internet for "acts of terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan," US officials said. They told the Post that Ahmad had been under surveillance for several years but that information obtained in other counter- terrorism operations in the past week allowed them to make the arrest.
Late Tuesday, British authorities arrested 12 people, including a key Al Qaeda figure, Eisa Hindi, and several others who have since been identified as members of the organization.
US officials told the Post that Hindi is suspected of helping to produce, before the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the surveillance of the five buildings that led officials on Sunday to raise the terror alert level.
The Post also reported that "there was a definite link" between a June 10 attack on the corps commander Karachi, in which 11 troops were killed, and the arrest two days later of Mussad Aruchi or al Baloshi, a suspected Al Qaeda operative. The commander, Lt-Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat, was not hurt.
"The Pakistanis are pounding away at Waziristan," one senior US national security official said. Several troops and hundreds of people have been killed in the region, the report said. Hundreds of people have fled their homes.
