WASHINGTON, 16 November 2002 — A senior member of the Al-Qaeda the network held responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States has been captured, a US official said yesterday. “I can’t tell you when, I can’t tell you where, I can’t tell you how,” said the official, who declined to be named.
The official also said there was a “very, very high likelihood” that an audiotape purportedly of the voice of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, recently broadcast by Arabic television station Al Jazeera, was authentic. He added, however, that “absolute certainty has not been reached.” The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency are still studying the tape, which threatened more terrorist attacks against the United States.
The official declined to name the Al-Qaeda operative who was caught in the past week or so. But it was neither top lieutenant Ayman Al-Zawahri, operational leader Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, nor Bin Laden’s son Saad.
The United States has vowed to destroy Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Roughly half of the top two-dozen Al-Qaeda leaders have either been killed or captured since the United States launched its war on terrorism after the attacks.
But Bin Laden has still not been found and apparently survived the US-led bombing on Afghanistan. The US military and intelligence agencies have scoured the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan for signs of Bin Laden and his followers.
Senior Al-Qaeda leaders in US custody include Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh, who were caught in separate operations in Pakistan earlier this year.
As the FBI warned earlier in the day that Al-Qaeda may launch “spectacular attacks” in the United States, the White House noted that officials were taking “additional precautions” in the face of such threats. “We are taking additional precautions to meet the threats,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “While we are not raising the threat level, we are taking additional precautions.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a bulletin issued to law enforcement personnel late Thursday and posted on the Internet yesterday that “in selecting its next targets, sources suggest Al-Qaeda may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the US economy and maximum psychological trauma.”
“The highest-priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors, as well as significant national landmarks,” it added. US authorities have become increasingly concerned this week that Al-Qaeda was planning new violence. The FBI said the network may favor “spectacular attacks” that result in mass casualties and severe damage to the US economy in selecting its next targets. (AFP/R)
