The suspected mastermind of the September 11th terrorist attacks is expected to be interrogated in US custody today amid reports he was planning further strikes.
Officials said Khalid Shaikh Mohammed remained in Pakistan after his capture over the weekend in a raid in the northern city of Rawalpindi, but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid indicated that he could soon be transferred.
"He was being interrogated by the joint Pakistani and US investigation team somewhere in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi region," Mr Rashid said. Mohammed was captured before dawn on Saturday.
Mohammed is considered number three in the al-Qaeda network after Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Mohammed is believed to be al-Qaeda's operational director and the architect of the September 11th attacks. Mohammed is an uncle of Ramzi Yousef - convicted over the 1993 bomb attack on New York's World Trade.
Since the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001 when al-Qaeda lost its main sanctuary, it is believed Mohammed was helping to rebuild the terrorist network and plot new attacks.
French investigators say satellite phone records show he personally gave the go-ahead for a suicide attack on a synagogue in Tunisia in April last year in which 19 people died, including 14 German tourists.
Mohammed has been described as highly intelligent, fluent in four languages and a master of disguise.
US Representative Porter Goss, chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee, said that Mohammed could help in the hunt for bin Laden. "I think he does know [bin Laden's whereabouts]. And I suspect he has been in contact with him as well," he said.
AFP