ISLAMABAD, 4 November 2005 — Pakistani forces, in an early morning swoop, killed an Arab Al-Qaeda suspect and seized two others in a shootout yesterday, but intelligence officials played down reports that one was a wanted Syrian militant.
The other person arrested was a Pakistani and a member of the defunct party Jaish-e-Muhammad, official sources said.
The shootout took place in the Marriabad locality of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. According to a source, the Al-Qaeda network was operating in this locality where most of the Hazara tribesmen live.
Agents got into a gunbattle with the foreign suspects when they raided a house on Tuesday in Quetta near the Afghan border, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said.
“Security forces were involved in a shootout when they raided a house in Quetta on Tuesday. They captured a foreigner and a Pakistani and killed another and they may be Al-Qaeda operatives,” Rashid said. Both were Arabs but their identities had not yet been confirmed, he added.
Rashid told reporters that it would be premature to speculate whether the slain suspect was a Saudi or Syrian. He said investigations were going on and from the information gathered from the captured Al-Qaeda members we will be able to zero in on other Al-Qaeda operatives in Quetta.
Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao also confirmed the incident, saying they had not yet identified the dead man and one of the captured person. “We are still trying. We don’t know who they are,” he added.
Earlier speculation was that one of the men was Syrian national Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab Al-Suri, who has reported links to the Madrid and London bombings. But a top-level security official said investigators had found no indications that the person was the wanted Syrian.
The US Justice Department’s Rewards for Justice website says there is a five million dollar reward for the capture of Nasar, 47, adding that he is believed to be in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
“Reports that Nasar is one of the men are speculations,” the security official said on condition of anonymity. “We don’t have any evidence that he is among them.”
“The suspect who died in the shootout was hit by bullets in the head,” the official said.
Nasar is an Al-Qaeda member and former trainer at two terror camps in Afghanistan, the US Justice Department website says. It says Nasar — who has red hair and pale skin — worked with another key militant to train extremists in the use of poisons and chemicals.
The US Justice Department website says “Recent unconfirmed press reports suggest that he may have had a role in the March 11, 2004 Madrid Bombings.”
Media and security journal reports have also quoted intelligence officials in Britain as saying Nasar is wanted in connection with the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 people including four suicide bombers.
Nasar has dual Spanish nationality by marriage after settling in Madrid in 1987, the website says. He then moved to London and served as a European intermediary for Al-Qaeda, it says, traveling extensively between Europe and Afghanistan throughout the late 1990s and finally moving his family to Afghanistan in 1998.
Pakistan says it has so far rounded up about 700 Al-Qaeda suspects, including alleged top operatives, both in army searches of lawless tribal border areas and other operations in major cities.
In September another operation in Quetta led to the capture of the main spokesman for Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban regime, Abdul Latif Hakimi. He was extradited to Afghanistan a few weeks later.
In May last Pakistan security agencies captured Abu-Faraj Al-Libbi, described as No. 3 man in Al-Qaeda network.
Despite the fact that whole official machinery was engaged in Rehabilitation and Relief work in Pakistan due to the Oct.8 earthquake, the security agencies are quite alert and are continuing their operations against terrorism.
— Additional input from agencies
