Abu Zubaida's Arrest

Is Osama bin Laden alive or dead? If alive, where is he?Where is Ayman al-Zawahiri, his Egyptian No. 2? How were the September 11, 2001,terrorist strikes in the US planned and carried out? Who co-ordinated thesestrikes? If they were based in the USA, where are they now? What were the plansof Al Qaeda after September 11,2001? How many of its trained operatives arescattered around the world? What are their identities?

Answers to these questions are likely to be available fromthe interrogation of Abu Zubaida alias Abu Zubayadah, alias Abd al-Hadi Al-Wahab,alias Zain Al-Abidin, alias Muhahhad Hussain, alias Zayn Al-Abidin MuhammadHusayn, alias Tariq, alias Abu-al Hasanat, alias Noorud Din, alias Dawood, aliasKamil, alias Badar alias Al Mujahid, a Palestinian born at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,who was reported to have been injured and arrested duringsurprise raids at many places in Faislabad, Multan and Lahore inPakistani Punjab on March 28 and 29, 2002, by a joint team of the PakistaniPolice and the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Two Al Qaeda suspects, as yet unidentified, were killed and46 Arabs and Pakistanis rounded up during the raids. Sixteen of thoserounded up, all Pakistanis, have since been released. Of the remaining 30,20 Arabs, including Abu Zubaida, and two Pakistanis, only identified asAmer and Hameed,were reportedly airlifted to the US naval base at DiegoGarcia on April 2, 2002, from where they would be taken to the US detentioncentre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They were accompanied by a 16-member FBIteam led by one Eliot Anderson.

It is understood that the FBI came to know of theirpresence in Punjab while making enquiries about two Pakistanis Rafiq Al Najam,wanted in connection with the explosion in an Islamabad church on March 17,2002, and Raja Masroor Hussain, wanted in connection with the kidnapping andmurder of Daniel Pearl, a journalist of the "Wall Street Journal".

Pakistani authorities, including Gen. Pervez Musharraf,have admitted that precise information regarding their having taken shelter inPakistani Punjab, with the apparent assistance of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET),ostensibly banned by Musharraf onJanuary 15, 2002, came from the FBI, but have denied that US Marines tooparticipated in the raids.

Talking to pressmen in Kabul on April 2, 2002, Musharrafsaid that his Government had turned over about 40 to 50 newly captured Al Qaedasuspects to the US. He said that he could not confirm 100 per cent theidentity of Abu Zubaida. He added: "With the help of US intelligenceinformation, it was Pakistani law enforcement agencies and Pakistaniintelligence organizations that moved against them very successfully.''

On April 3,2002, the Washington correspondent of the"The News" of Islamabad reportedthat the White House had confirmed that Abu Zubaida was amongst those captured.He quoted the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as saying: "We believethat one of the individuals captured by Pakistani authorities in a recent raidis Abu Zubaida who, as you know, is a key terrorist recruiter and regionalplanner and member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle. He is currentlyreceiving medical attention. For security reasons we are not going todiscuss his location. He will be interrogated about his knowledge ofongoing plans to conduct terrorist activities. This represents a veryserious blow to Al Qaeda."

While US officials thus seemed to be certain that one ofthe men in their custody is the elusive and little photographed AbuZubaida,Pakistani intelligence officials, while not disputing the USidentification, continue to say that they are not 100 per cent certain.According to them, the man identified by the US as Abu Zubaida also resembledAbu Hasham alias Abdul Latif alias Abu Amer Hashim, a Syrian.

The important role played by Abu Zubaida in bin Laden'sset-up reportedly came to the notice of the FBI during the interrogation ofAhmed Ressam, an Al Qaeda trained Algerian terrorist, who was caught whilecrossing the US border at Port Angeles, Wash, on December 14,1999, with a trunkfull of explosive devices, which were to be used for causingexplosions at the Los Angeles airport and other places. Hereportedly described Abu Zubaida as the in-charge of two training camps of theAl Qaeda called Durunta and Khalden in the Taliban-controlled territory, who hada guest house in Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) ofPakistan, which was used as a staging post for briefing all new recruits beforethey were sent to the training camps and for another briefing on the tasks to beaccomplished by them after they had completed the training.

After the reported death of Mohammed Atef, a formerEgyptian Police officer, who acted as the chief of operations and as thein-charge of bin Laden's personal security, during the US air strikes near Kabulin November, 2001, Abu Zubaida was reportedto have taken over these responsibilities. His presence in hidingin Punjab, instead of being with bin Laden, throws open the interestingpossibility that bin Laden may no longer be alive since, if he were alive, AbuZubaida would, most probably, have been with him.

The arrests of the Al Qaeda suspects during the FBI-ledraids in Pakistani Punjab have created considerable embarrassment for thePakistani authorities due to the following reasons:

It was believed till now that the surviving dregs of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda had taken shelter with the Pashtun tribals in Balochistan, the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Last week's arrests showed that many of the dregs had been given shelter by Punjabis too, close to the LET.
Though Musharraf had banned the LET on January 15, 2002, and claimed to have raided their offices and hide-outs all over Pakistan and arrested their cadres, the places in Faislabad, Multan and Lahore, where the Al Qaeda suspects were found, had apparently not been raided.
While the FBI obtained precise intelligence about their presence in Punjab, the Punjab Police and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were either not aware of it or had connived at their taking shelter in Punjab. It is not known how the FBI got the intelligence---through human sources or technical means.