Top suspect of Al Qaeda arrested

Published July 30, 2004

DUBAI, July 29: Pakistan has arrested a top Al Qaeda suspect wanted by the United States, Al Arabiya news channel quoted President Pervez Musharraf as saying.

"The Pakistani President said the arrested person is Tanzanian who is married to an Uzbek woman, and who is wanted by the United States," the channel said.

President Musharraf told Al Arabiya that the suspect was arrested on Sunday, but declined to name him. Al Arabiya said the suspect may be Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who is on the FBI's most wanted 'terrorists' list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Ahmed Ghailani was among seven people about whom the United States said in May that it was seeking information amid fears of a possible attack in the near future. Meanwhile, talking to CNN on Thursday, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said Pakistan has arrested a senior Al Qaeda figure with a bounty of up to $25 million on his head.

He said the suspect had been captured during a raid in central Pakistan a few days ago. He did not identify the captive but said he was 'a person who is most wanted internationally'.

A Pakistani official said on Tuesday that Pakistani security forces were holding three Africans, including a Tanzanian, suspected of being militants after a shootout last week. Another said the suspects had been trying to flee Pakistan along with their families, using fake documents, after living in neighbouring Afghanistan. -Reuters

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