PESHAWAR, April 12: Despite a worldwide crackdown to freeze funding of Al Qaeda, the organization is able to pay stipend to its present and former operatives, security officials interrogating two suspects have told Dawn. “It is now more or less established that Al Qaeda is still getting money from its sympathizers from abroad and has a network of paymasters to dole out financial assistance to its operatives, regardless of their status or whether they are active or have become inactive,” an investigator said.

Security officials involved in the hunt for Al Qaeda operatives say that they have tracked down substantial amounts going to the organization’s known contacts.

“They are still getting money from sympathizers in the Middle East and the Gulf,” a security official said.

The assessment was corroborated by the arrest last week of two Algerians from a locality in Peshawar, who admitted during interrogation to have regularly received stipends from Al Qaeda contacts.

Medjouri Mohammad Said, 39, and Mehdi Rabbah, 37, were picked up in Faisal Town on Dalazak Road. Both, fluent in Pushto, pretended to be Afghans and carried nom de guere of Zaid and Azizullah, respectively. They had married locally and had lived in Batkhela, Malakand Agency, before moving to Peshawar.

They told investigators that they had been regularly receiving $600 to $900 from known Al Qaeda paymasters after every three to six months. They admitted that they did not do anything and lived squarely on the stipend.

They acknowledged having received training at Khaldan camp in Afghanistan’s Khost province ran by and for Arab militants and having been associated with local commanders but insisted that they had no links with Al Qaeda.

The two, however, failed to convince investigators on why they were paid if they had no links with Al Qaeda.

An official said information gleaned from suspects revealed that Al Qaeda had been giving financial assistance to those who were no longer active and wanted to live a normal life but had been associated with it. The two suspects told investigators that they had fled Afghanistan soon after the United States invasion and had been living with their in-laws in Malakand.