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Pearl killing link to 9/11 captive
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan intelligence officials have implicated captured al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in last year's murder of reporter Daniel Pearl. Mohammed, the suspected mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was arrested early Saturday in the Islamabad suburb of Rawalpindi, a week after he eluded capture during a raid in Quetta, Pakistan, 400 miles away. The dawn raid by Pakistani authorities has also uncovered names of possible other al Qaeda operatives, including some believed to be in Washington and other U.S. cities. They were found among a "treasure trove" of material recovered during the capture of Mohammed, sources said. Washington has linked Mohammed to a string of terrorist attacks around the world, from a Philippines-based plot to blow up 12 U.S.-bound commercial airliners in 48 hours in 1996 to last October's deadly Bali bombings and the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl. One of three Pakistanis who last May led authorities to Pearl's body, buried in a shallow grave in the southern city of Karachi, had implicated Mohammed in the murder, a Pakistani official was quoted as saying by The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. A Karachi police investigator also said one of the three men -- who investigators had suspected of Pearl's kidnapping and death -- implicated Mohammed, but the suspect later recanted his accusation. Pakistan and U.S. officials have confirmed Mohammed is being held in U.S. custody somewhere outside of Pakistan but within the region. "He has been sent out of the country this morning," state-run Pakistan Television quoted Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed as saying. "He is somewhere in this region. You know where the Americans are in this region...they are in Afghanistan, they have forces massed elsewhere...try and figure it out," Rashid later told Reuters news agency. Terrorist chatterWhite House spokesman Ari Fleischer earlier said the recent increase in the United States' terror alert level from yellow to orange for most of February was tied to Mohammed. "We had information. We had various reporting, all of which to varying degrees could be traced back to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and that gave more credibility to our concerns," Fleischer said. He said there had been an increasing amount of terrorist "chatter" -- including a good "quality of chatter" -- that was connected to Mohammed. U.S. officials were present when Pakistani authorities arrested Mohammed and two other men, but they did not participate, a senior U.S. intelligence official said. The other two men arrested were Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, a member of Pakistan's largest religious-political party, and another man of Middle Eastern origin, Pakistani officials said. FBI and CIA agents are poring over information found during Saturday's raid, including computers, computer disks, documents and cell phones, a U.S. government official said. Some counterterrorism officials expressed frustration that the Pakistani government had so quickly disclosed information about Mohammed's arrest. One source said it put U.S. authorities "behind the eight ball" in trying to locate potential terrorist cells and that it would have been helpful if U.S. agents had been given a 24-hour head start. U.S. officials said they have evidence that Mohammed had been in touch with Osama bin Laden since September 11, 2001, but they declined to say whether they believe he has had recent contact with the al Qaeda leader. -- CNN correspondents David Ensor, Maria Ressa, Mike Boettcher, Ash-Har Quraishi, Kelli Arena, John King and Suzanne Malveaux, and producers Syed Mohsin Naqzi and Phil Hirschkorn, contributed to this report. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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