WASHINGTON, Sept 8: Al Qaeda has established a formidable network in Karachi where top aides of Osama bin Laden have been hiding since the collapse of the Taliban regime last year, says an Arab journalist.
Yosri Fouda, who said he had met some top Al Qaeda operatives in Karachi earlier this month, told an American news agency that the group has many hiding places in the city.
In an interview to United Press International in London, Mr Fouda claimed that Al Qaeda had chosen him to deliver a message to the world on the first anniversary of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks and taken him to Karachi from London. Mr Fouda works at the London bureau of the al Jazeera TV which has aired many exclusive interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama.
The interview — part of which was shown by al Jazeera last week and has since been repeated by CNN, BBC and other international channels — is considered a major journalistic coup. The second part is expected to be telecast this week.
Asked by UPI what was his first impression of the Al Qaeda operatives, Mr Fouda said: “I thought they were very well-trained and professional... more careful and more professional (than intelligence operatives) in trying to make me lose my sense of direction.
“The way they messed about with me, I didn’t expect them to be so sophisticated.”
Mr Fouda said that after a long and convoluted journey, operatives brought him blindfolded to a Karachi apartment. The trip took twists and turns through the streets with Al Qaeda men videotaping Mr Fouda in the car and up to his entrance to the apartment.
“All sorts of things went through my mind. I didn’t have a clue who I was going to meet. I had a feeling I was going to meet some very important people since that very first contact,” he said. “Something worth taking the risk.”
“The shocking surprise was that in front of me was Haji (Khalid Shaikh) Mohammed,” Mr Fouda said. “I (had) heard the door opening. A hand was pulling my hand. I opened my eyes and found Haji Mohammed face to face. I always knew it was going to be something important.”
Mr Fouda had wondered whether the face to greet him would be that of Osama. It wasn’t, but he was not disappointed.
Haji Mohammed took him down a long hallway to Ramzi Binalshibh, who was ensconced on the floor of a small room, the reporter said.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti citizen, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list and has a $25 million bounty on his head,undertook a central planning role in the attacks, according to the US officials. In addition, he was indicted in 1996 for allegedly plotting the year before to use explosives on airliners flying to the United States from Southeast Asia.
Mr Binalshibh, according to an indictment from German authorities, was part of a Hamburg-based cell, preparing the hijacking attacks. The United States sent out a worldwide alert for Binalshibh after they unearthed a videotape of him that US officials said was found in an Al Qaeda leader’s house in Afghanistan. He purportedly delivered a martyrdom message on that tape. He, too, is on the FBI’s most-wanted list.
In a statement issued in advance of the first part of the interview, aired on Thursday, al Jazeera identified the two men as the head of Al Qaeda’s military committee and the coordinator of the Sept 11 hijackings.
The TV said they had described in detail how Al Qaeda had planned and carried out the attacks on what they call a “Holy Tuesday” — which, if true, ought to lay to rest widespread doubts in the Muslim world about the responsibility of Al Qaeda.
But, in the event, Thursday’s broadcast only comprised brief segments of the interview.
And even the man who heard the confession with his own ears says he is still unsure who the real authors of the attacks are. “Now I have no doubt that Al Qaeda actually did it. ... (But) was it a knife-edge someone else was holding? We have too many coincidences now, and they are fact, not rumours.”
While confirming that the second part of the show next week will tell the world about Al Qaeda’s part in the attacks, Mr Fouda would only discuss the segment that had already aired, declining to reveal the contents of next week’s broadcast or his impressions related to the remainder of the interview.
“It’s their style not to take responsibility,” he said of Al Qaeda. “Legally speaking they (were) not liable — until I met those two.”
“They are telling you ... how they planned for it and how they executed it,” Mr Fouda said. “American circles as well as the rest of the world will know about a few of the facts for the first time.”
“They were on the planes, bin Laden was behind it,” he said. “They are proud of it. In the beginning, they tried to avoid an American backlash. They though that by doing that, although the world would guess it would be bin Laden, bin Laden wouldn’t take responsibility.” Asked was he afraid he would end up like Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal’s reporter who was killed by militants in Pakistan while trying to obtain an interview, Mr Fouda replied in negative. He said he knew they would not “target a Muslim. It doesn’t add to their goals.”
The experience and the aftermath of the publicity still have him stunned. “It sounds like a surreal experience until this moment,” he said. “Sounds like I was dreaming. They chose me.”
As for journalistic ethics, he said: “My boss didn’t know exactly what I was after. I just asked him to trust me. “I had a hunch they would go through al Jazeera. These are the sort of people you really don’t track down (as a journalist). You can only dream of it.”
But he still has questions about intelligence agencies that Haji Mohammed called “intelligence dogs” in the interview. “If I was able as a journalist to get to them, why the hell can’t they?”
