Karachi: Pakistani security agents denied on Monday that an American al Qaeda spokesman wanted in the United States for treason had been arrested, saying there had been confusion over the identity of a detained suspect.
Some Pakistani officials had said on Sunday that Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million U.S. bounty on his head, had been arrested on the outskirts of the city of Karachi.
But a senior government official and two security agents said on Monday the suspected al Qaeda operative picked up in Karachi was not Gadahn.
"Our initial impression was that the guy was Adam Gadahn but that information now looks incorrect," said one security official, who declined to be identified. The arrested man was believed to be an American who goes by the alias Abu Yahya, the officials said. Gadahn is known to have used a similar alias.
"Probably the name and his origin caused the confusion," the first official said.
He declined to speculate about the identity of the arrested man except to say he was apparently an American al Qaeda operative. "We don't know yet how big a catch he is," he said.
Pakistan is battling indigenous, al Qaeda-linked Taliban militants and has resisted U.S. pressure to launch military offensives against Afghan Taliban factions based in rugged ethnic Pashtun lands on its northwestern border.
While ruling out another big offensive soon, Pakistan has arrested several senior members of the Afghan Taliban in recent weeks, including a top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, March 09, 2010, 09:58