Lahore, Mar 16: Pakistani authorities arrested a suspected senior al-Qaida operative in the eastern city of Lahore, the Pakistani information minister and American government sources said.
The suspect, Yassir al-Jaziri, is a key subordinate of Osama bin Laden who facilitates communications between al-Qaida operatives, the US government sources said. He is within the top two dozen top two dozen most-wanted figures in al-Qaida, the sources said, speaking on the condition they not be identified.
Al-Jaziri was arrested yesterday in the posh Gulburg neighborhood of Lahore by Pakistani security agencies, information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the associated press. The Pakistani family with whom al-Jaziri was staying with was being interrogated but Ahmed said they were not under arrest at this time.
US intelligence provided information that led to the arrest near Lahore, but Americans did not take part in the actual raid that captured him, the US government sources said.
“Al-Jaziri is definitely an important al-Qaida leader '' Pakistan's interior ministry secretary, Tasneem Noorani, said. “We understand that he is among those al-Qaida leaders wanted by the United States.''
Pakistani court documents in which al-Jaziri is named describe him as a dual nationality Algerian Moroccan, responsible for al-Qaida's business interests.
The US government sources said that his name suggests he is an Algerian, but that information is not certain. The sources did not believe he was Moroccan.
Bureau Report