Pakistani security forces aided by the FBI have captured a prime al-Qaeda suspect in the September 11th attacks after tracing satellite phone calls, officials and sources said this morning.
Ramzi bin al-Shaiba was among several Arabs arrested last Wednesday after a three-hour shootout at a Karachi apartment on the first anniversary of the attacks, said Pakistan's Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider.
Mr Haider said bin al-Shaiba and the other detainees are in Pakistan. "They are not with the police but our intelligence agencies are interrogating."
The US president has hailed the capture and vowed to hunt down other suspects still at large in the war against terrorism.
"Thanks to the efforts of our folks and people in Pakistan, we captured one of the planners and organizers of the September 11th attack that murdered thousands of people," Bush said.
"One by one, we're hunting the killers down. We are relentless, we are strong, and we're not going to stop," he added.
President Pervez Musharraf hailed the arrest, seen as the second most important detention of an al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan following the capture of Osama bin Laden's key lieutenant Abu Zubaydah in March.
"The arrest of these people is a proof that Pakistan is doing whatever is possible to curb terrorism," Pakistani journalists accompanying Musharraf quoted him as saying in New York.
The president described the arrests as "a major achievement by ISI (Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence)."
A Karachi police source said the ISI and police launched the raid following a tip off from the FBI after a satellite phone call was traced.
In a recent interview with Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV, bin al-Shaiba quoted as saying he was an active al-Qaeda planner in the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 3,000 people.
FBI director Robert Mueller said last year that bin al-Shaiba was to have been one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the air pirates.
He had enrolled in a flying school but was refused entry to the United States four times, Mueller said.
Bin al-Shaiba then handled logistics and money matters for the attacks and entered Pakistan just before September 11th, US officials said.
He was a roommate of Mohammed Atta, the hijackers' ringleader, when an al-Qaeda cell was active in the German city of Hamburg, according to the officials.
AFP