ISLAMABAD, 25 May 2005 — Security forces have arrested an Egyptian and another foreigner suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said yesterday.
The suspects were arrested on Monday near the town of Charsadda, in North West Frontier Province near the border with Afghanistan and about 140 kilometers northwest of Islamabad. “They are both foreigners,” the information minister told Reuters.
He said the identity of the suspects was being established but it appeared that neither was a senior figure in the Al-Qaeda network.
An intelligence official said one of the suspects had identified himself as Ahmed and said he came from Egypt. “He is in his 60s and has been living in the area for about two years,” the official said, on condition of anonymity.
“Two female undercover agents posing as village women visited the home and then intelligence agents conducted the raid,” another security official said.
“He is an old Arab claiming to be Egyptian and married to a local ethnic Pashtun girl.”
Pakistani security forces this month captured Abu Faraj Al Libbi, thought to be Al-Qaeda’s number three, in the same region close to the Afghan border.
Rashid said the two were among up to eight foreign suspects rounded up since Libbi’s arrest.
