ISLAMABAD, 17 March 2003 — Pakistan and US security officials interrogated yesterday a senior suspected Al-Qaeda leader, Yassir Al-Jazeeri, whose arrest in the eastern city of Lahore was hailed as another blow to Osama bin Laden’s terror network.

Yassir Al-Jazeeri, arrested Saturday, is in the custody of Pakistani intelligence agencies, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP. “He is being interrogated,” Rashid said, adding the suspect was “wanted by the United States.” Security sources said US officials were also involved in a “joint interrogation.”

The suspect was among the “top seven” officials of Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, Rashid said.

“The interrogation may last two or three days,” he said. A decision about handing the suspect over to the United States would be taken later, he said. Al-Jazeeri, a Moroccan national, was arrested in a raid by Pakistani security forces late Saturday.

He was picked up from the fashionable Gulberg neighborhood of Lahore, the country’s second largest city and the capital of the populous Punjab province, Rashid said.

The minister said the arrest followed information gleaned from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the third most senior official in the Al-Qaeda hierarchy who was captured from a house in the northern town of Rawalpindi two weeks ago.

Al-Jazeeri’s arrest was “linked” to the March 1 detention of Sheikh Mohammed, Rashid said.

Pakistani officials had described Sheikh Mohammed’s capture as the biggest coup of the 18-month hunt for Al-Qaeda fugitives.

Sheikh Mohammed is believed to be Al-Qaeda’s operational commander and the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States that killed more than 3,000 people.

“(Al-Jazeeri) is another big catch, but not as big as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” Rashid said, stressing that Al-Jazeeri was an “important leader” whose arrest would be another blow to Al-Qaeda.

Sheikh Mohammed was handed over to US custody and flown to the US base at Bagram north of the Afghan capital Kabul after three days of interrogation in Pakistan.

Al-Jazeeri’s name first surfaced in Pakistan when security officials arrested a Pakistani doctor Ahmed Javed Khawaja and his brother Naveed from their home in Lahore on Dec. 18.

Almost a month after the midnight raid, which witnesses said was assisted by agents of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Pakistan’s Interior Ministry alleged that Khawaja’s family had harbored and helped four wanted Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Among the four was a man listed as Al Jazairi who officials said is the same Al-Jazeeri arrested Saturday.

The others were list as Assadullah and Sheikh Said Al-Misri, both identified as Egyptians, and Abu Faraj, a North African described as a deputy of Sheikh Mohammed.

The Interior Ministry told the Lahore High Court in a statement on Jan. 21 that Al Jazairi was “responsible for the business of Al-Qaeda.” Al-Misri was a “financial chief” of the terror network and Faraj was the head of Al-Qaeda’s North Africa network, according to the statement.

None of the four names appear on the FBI’s list of 22 “most wanted terrorists.”

Sheikh Mohammed was the third top aide to Bin Laden to be arrested in Pakistan since the ouster of the Taleban regime in neighboring Afghanistan in November 2001 after a US-led military campaign.

In March last year Pakistani and FBI agents arrested Abu Zubaydah from the industrial city of Faisalabad.

Another key Al-Qaeda figure, Ramzi bin Al-Shaiba, was arrested in the southern port city of Karachi on Sept. 11, 2002 — the first anniversary of the attacks in the United States.

Pakistan, a pivotal ally of United States in the 18-month-old war against terrorism, has arrested and handed over nearly 450 suspected Al-Qaeda fugitives to US authorities.

Most were taken to the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where they have been under intense interrogation.