ISLAMABAD, March 6: Pakistani law-enforcement agencies will benefit from the $25 million head money set by the US for the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said on Thursday.

“Obviously, the personnel of the law-enforcement agencies who made the arrest of the Al Qaeda suspect possible would be the beneficiaries of the head money,” the minister told Dawn.

The minister said Osama bin Laden was alive, but ruled out the possibility of his presence in Islamabad as speculated by CNN.

He said international media networks were giving contradictory reports about Osama’s whereabouts. “Sometimes they say Osama has hidden in an area bordering Pakistan and sometimes they report that he is in Islamabad,” the minister said.

Mr Hayat said Khalid Mohammed, who was arrested in Rawalpindi last Saturday, had given some vital clues about the whereabouts of Osama.

Asked why Khalid Mohammed was sent to Afghanistan, the minister said: “We should not engage in controversy over why he has been sent to the neighbouring country. The important thing is that Pakistani law-enforcement agencies have done a commendable job by netting a most wanted terrorist.”

The minister said Pakistan would shortly officially declare Al Qaeda a “terrorist organization.” However, being part of a global movement against terrorism, the country already considered it a terrorist group, he said.

Replying to a question about the possibility of Khalid Mohammed having dual nationality, the minister said the suspect had never obtained Pakistani nationality.

However, a source told Dawn that Khalid Mohammed’s father, Ali Mohammad Sheikh, was a Pakistani national who had migrated to Kuwait in 1959. The government of Kuwait did not consider the suspect a Kuwait national and had declared him a person living without any nationality or stateless.

The source said the Pakistani embassy in Kuwait had issued a Pakistani passport to Khalid Mohammed and he had been travelling on this passport.

On the other hand, the interior minister said the accused was not issued a Pakistani passport and he had travelled on a Kuwaiti passport.

International media have reported that Khalid Mohammed was being interrogated by the FBI, which was finding it very difficult to get any information out of him.

He is being questioned in isolated places so that he cannot move any court of any country against his detention, according to reports in the international press.