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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Morocco Arrests Alleged Senior al-Qaeda Official

Moroccan authorities have arrested a senior al-Qaeda recruiter known as "The Bear" who is suspected of plotting attacks against Western interests in Morocco, U.S. officials said Tuesday.


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Moroccan authorities have arrested a senior al-Qaeda recruiter known as "The Bear" who is suspected of plotting attacks against Western interests in Morocco, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Abu Zubair al-Haili, a Saudi who weighs more than 300 pounds, is considered among the top 25 al-Qaeda lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Before Sept. 11, he ran some of bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. During the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, he helped evacuate al-Qaeda operatives from the country, officials said.

He has been in Moroccan custody since early last week, officials said. How he came to Morocco is unclear.

Al-Haili was a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, the senior al-Qaeda operations chief whom U.S. authorities captured in Pakistan in March.

Like Abu Zubaydah, al-Haili was central to al-Qaeda's international recruiting network, accepting recruits into training and placing them in overseas cells, officials said.

Al-Haili has not been tied to specific past al-Qaeda terrorist operations, but officials said his knowledge of al-Qaeda operations and terrorist cells would be useful to interrogators.

U.S. authorities are believed to have access to whatever information al-Haili is providing his interrogators.

His arrest is the latest in a series of breaks in the U.S. war on terrorism, both in Morocco and elsewhere.


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