Arrests Raising Hopes in Hunt for Al Qaeda
By DAVID JOHNSTON with DOUGLAS FRANTZ
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — The capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Karachi gives American investigators and their allies an unexpected chance to strike a major blow against the Qaeda network in Europe and Southeast Asia, according to intelligence officials and diplomats.
His arrest, coming at the same time as those of five American citizens of Yemeni descent in Buffalo, also provides a lift to the government's counterterrorism operation, which has often been criticized in the last year for its inability to penetrate Al Qaeda or determine whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead.
Officials said Mr. bin al-Shibh's significance is that he might be one of the few people still alive with intimate knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.
But his potential importance appears to go well beyond that. His name has also come up in connection with other Qaeda operations in Europe and North Africa, including a recent bombing in Tunisia, according to German and Spanish investigators. He may be able to provide the names and location of Qaeda associates across Germany, Spain and Southeast Asia.
"One by one, we are hunting the killers down," President Bush said this morning at Camp David, during an appearance with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "We are relentless, we are strong, and we are not going to stop."
In April, the Spanish police said they found his telephone number when they arrested the chief financier of Al Qaeda's Spanish operations. The financier is suspected of providing money for the Sept. 11 plot and other operations.
Mr. bin al-Shibh was in Spain at the same time as Mohamed Atta, one of the hijacker pilots, in July 2001. Although there is no hard evidence that they met, American and Spanish investigators said they believed that the two men and several others who are unidentified met to discuss final plans for the American attacks.
In Buffalo, criminal charges filed today against five American citizens of Yemeni descent accused them of traveling to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 for weapons training. The charges represented the first substantive evidence since the Sept. 11 hijackings that an active Qaeda cell was operating in the United States. The discovery gave some credence to repeated government warnings that had proved empty up to now.
The twin breakthroughs in the antiterror investigation came at the end of a week in which Americans commemorated the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, were warned of a high risk of further attacks, and heard the Bush administration set out its arguments for taking the campaign against terrorism into Iraq.
Today, Mr. bin al-Shibh's legal status remained unclear. He was apprehended by the Pakistani authorities operating in coordination with the United States, but it was uncertain whether he was in Pakistani or American custody.
How Mr. bin al-Shibh will respond to interrogation is a critical and unresolved issue. In the past, it has taken long sessions to extract information from senior Qaeda prisoners, and some have refused to talk, according to intelligence officials.
Mr. bin al-Shibh has been charged in Germany with 3,000 counts of murder for his role in the attacks. The Germans today said they would ask for his extradition from Pakistan. But the Americans are sure to want him. The German interior minister, Otto Schily, recognized the problem today, saying, "if there are competing claims then we are going to sort them out." One issue in the conflict is that Germany and other members of the European Union do not have a death penalty, unlike the United States.
Mr. bin al-Shibh has also been identified as unindicted co-conspirator in the charges against Zacarias Moussaoui, the man accused as the suspected 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. American officials, who expect that Mr. bin al-Shibh will be turned over to the United States, have not yet decided whether he will be charged in the United States with criminal violations or held as an enemy combatant.
Today, officials in Pakistan and the United States offered somewhat contradictory accounts of Mr. bin al-Shibh's arrest. By some accounts, the Pakistani authorities played a central role in an arrest in which Mr. bin al-Shibh was said to be found almost by chance. American officials said United States intelligence officials played a key role in helping the Pakistanis locate Mr. bin al-Shibh.
Mr. bin al-Shibh's obvious value to investigators will be in reconstructing the events leading up to the attacks. He could answer many of the lingering questions about the attacks on New York and Washington, ranging from Mr. bin Laden's exact role to who provided the money for the operation. The indictment against Mr. Moussaoui accused Mr. bin al-Shibh of wiring money to Mr. Moussaoui and one of the hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi.
Interrogators are expected to focus hardest on getting information about Mr. bin al-Shibh's contacts with Qaeda cells as well as his knowledge of ongoing operations and methods of financing attacks and communicating with operatives in the field.
"If he cooperates, it will be a major breakthrough to efforts to break up the remnants of Al Qaeda in Europe and other places," a Western diplomat said in an interview today.
The Western diplomat said Mr. bin al-Shibh, a 30-year-old Yemeni, could be the most important Al Qaeda leader captured since the arrest of Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan. The American authorities said Mr. Zubaydah had provided important information, though the interrogation has been laborious.
In recent weeks, through interrogations of Qaeda prisoners at the American base in Cuba and information from witnesses in Germany and elsewhere, the authorities have pieced together a better picture of the Sept. 11 plot. They said in recent interviews that Mr. bin al-Shibh was suspected of playing a larger role than was previously known.
Investigators said they also have photographs and credit card receipts indicating that Mr. bin al-Shibh met with two other hijackers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000. If true, that would mean he might knowledge of Qaeda operations in Southeast Asia. |
