LAHORE, 16 March 2003 — Pakistani authorities arrested a senior Al-Qaeda operative in the eastern city of Lahore yesterday, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

The man, Yassir Al-Jazeeri, is among the top seven men wanted by the United States, Ahmed told the Associated Press, although his name does not appear on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist list.

It wasn’t immediately known where Al-Jazeeri stands in the hierarchy of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, led by Osama Bin Laden.

“Al-Jazeeri is definitely an important Al-Qaeda leader and this is all I can say at this point,” Pakistan’s Interior Ministry secretary, Tasneem Noorani, said. He also told the AP that Al-Jazeeri was from Morocco.

“We understand that he is among those Al-Qaeda leaders wanted by the United States,” he said, adding that the FBI assisted in the apprehension of Al-Jazeeri. The nature of that assistance was not immediately clear.

Al-Jazeeri was arrested in the posh Gulburg neighborhood of Lahore by Pakistani security agencies, Ahmed said. The Pakistani family with whom Al-Jazeeri was staying with was being interrogated but Ahmed said members of the family were not under arrest at this time.

On March 1, Al-Qaeda’s suspected No. 3, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was arrested in Rawalpindi, located near the federal capital of Islamabad. Mohammed’s arrest led to a massive manhunt along Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt that borders Afghanistan as well as the mountainous eastern and southwestern regions of Afghanistan for Bin Laden and other terrorists.

Mohammed is believed to have been the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and was the most significant Al-Qaeda catch since the war on terror began in October 2001.

“This is the biggest catch since Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” an intelligence source said, adding a second man, an Afghan called Gulzeb, alias Jaffar, had also been captured.

The intelligence source said the arrest had been made by four Pakistani security personnel accompanied by two “white men”, and said Al-Jazeeri had been tracked down thanks to information received from Mohammed.