ISLAMABAD, 30 July 2004 — Pakistan said yesterday it had arrested a senior Al-Qaeda figure wanted for the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa that killed hundreds of people.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat identified the man as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and said he was a Tanzanian national wanted for the synchronized bombings that killed more than 200 people at the US Embassy in Kenya and 11 at the embassy in Tanzania.
“He carried head money of $25 million,” Hayat told Reuters.
He said Ghailani was one of about a dozen people arrested Tuesday when security forces raided a suspected militant hideout in the city of Gujarat, about 175 km southeast of the capital Islamabad.
Ghailani is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings. Ghailani was among seven people about whom the United States said in May it was seeking information amid fears of a possible attack in the near future.
