Key al-Qaeda Suspect Handed over to US

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, March 02, 2003

Key al-Qaeda Suspect Handed over to US

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,a suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, has been handed over to the US authorities and taken out of Pakistan, a senior Pakistani official said on Sunday.

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Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,a suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, has been handed over to the US authorities and taken out of Pakistan, a senior Pakistani official said on Sunday.

He said Mohammed had been handed over to US custody after being interrogated by Pakistani officials, and had been taken to an unidentified location.

The official also noted that the second man arrested in the raid proved to be an important man and was still in Pakistan as of Saturday evening. A third arrestee, Pakistani Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, has not been handed over to the US authorities.

Mohammed, a top al-Qaeda leader who had allegedly played a key role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, was arrested by the Pakistani authorities early Saturday in the central Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.

Two other members of the terrorist network were also captured by police during a joint search for al-Qaeda fugitives, carried out in the city by Pakistani security forces and US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, officials said.

In Washington, the Bush administration hailed the arrests as "fantastic" and said it was a "successful joint operation."

"That's fantastic!" Bush said early Saturday when his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, delivered the news of Mohammed's capture in Pakistan.

The United States commends Pakistani and US authorities on the completion of a successful joint operation, which resulted in the detention of several al-Qaeda operatives, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in a statement.

Mohammed was one of Osama bin Laden's "most senior and significant lieutenants, a key al-Qaeda planner and the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks," Fleischer said.

Mohammed, 45, had reportedly escaped a series of previous raids in different parts of Pakistan. His arrest, US and Pakistani officials believe, is the biggest catch so far since the US-led campaign against terrorism began in 2001.

Mohammed is among the 22 top al-Qaeda members on the FBI's most wanted list. For information leading to his capture, the US State Department had offered a reward of up to 25 million US dollars.

Fleischer said that Mohammed has been under US indictment since1996 for the Manila air conspiracy, a plot to bomb a series of US civilian airliners.

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