The King Pin Of Al Qaeda?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, described by Maj. Gen.Rashid Qureshi, the media spokesman of Gen.Pervez Musharraf,as "the kingpin of Al Qaeda", was arrested by the Pakistani intelligence officials from the house of the son ( Abdul Qadoos) of a local women's leader  of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), at Rawalpindi on March1,2003, and handed over to the officials of the US intelligence community based in Pakistan.  The latterimmediately air-lifted him to the US naval base in Diego Garcia for interrogation.

It is understood that an Arab and the Pakistani son of the JEI leader were also arrested by the Pakistaniauthorities during the raid.  While the arrested Pakistani has not been handed over to the US officials,it is not clear as to whether the  Arab is also now in US custody.

According to details available so far, during the interrogation of two members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ)arrested in Karachi last month on a tip-off from some members of the Kashmiri Shia community of Karachihailing from Gilgit, the intelligence officials came to know of the whereabouts of another wanted LEJterrorist, who had taken shelter in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.  He too was then arrested andquestioned.  He is reported to have revealed that Khalid was staying with him, but had managed to escapejust before the raid.  He gave the address of the JEI leader's son in Rawalpindi as one of the likelyplaces where he might have taken shelter.

The house in Rawalpindi was raided thereafter and Khalid and the Arab were arrested.  Khalid had firstcome to notice in 1995 when he was reportedly involved, along with Ramzi Yousef,formerly of the Sipah-e-SahabaPakistan, the political wing of the LEJ, in a plot for a series of terrorist attacks directed against USairlines and other American interests.  Khalid and Ramzi Yousef, described as Khalid's nephew, had drawnup the plot from a hide-out in Manila where they had taken shelter after the involvement of Ramzi in theexplosion at the World Trade Centre at New York in February, 1993. 

Following an accidental fire in their hide-out, which drew the attention of the Filippino authorities totheir presence and activities in Manila, they escaped to Pakistan.  While Ramzi was arrested by thePakistani authorities and handed over to US officials for trial in the World Trade Centre explosion case inwhich he was convicted along with others and sentenced to life imprisonment, Khalid had been absconding sincethen.

Accounts emanating since 9/11 from US intelligence officials and some non-governmental counter-terrorismexperts known for their proximity to the US intelligence agencies, who generally reflect in their analyses theviews of the US intelligence, have been projecting Khalid as the real action man of Osama bin Laden and as theman who orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US.  In an interview to the Al Jazeera TV in thelast week of August, 2002, Khalid and Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni member of Al Qaeda, had bragged about theirrole in 9/11 and Khalid, during his talk with Al Jazeera correspondent, was reported to have introducedhimself as the head of Al Qaeda's Military Committee.  The correspondent had reported that he interviewedthem in a hide-out in Karachi.

US Intelligence officials then organised a hunt for them in Karachi and, through electronic intercepts,managed to locate their hide-out, which was raided by the Pakistani authorities on September 11, 2002. Duringan exchange of fire lasting about four hours, Khalid managed to escape, but Ramzi Binalshibh was captured andairlifted to Diego Garcia for interrogation. According to US officials, he was also to have joined in thehijacking of the aircraft in the US on 9/11, but could not do so since he could not get a US visa.

Since then, US officials have been hunting for Khalid.  Since 1995, the following six terrorists,involved in acts of terrorism against US nationals and interests, have been among those  arrested inPakistan:
 

• Ramzi Yousef, involved in the World Trade Centre explosion of February,1993.
  
  
• Mir Aimal Kansi, involved in the murder of two officers of the CIA outside their office in Langley, USA,in January,1993.  He has since been executed in the US after his conviction in the case.
  
  
• Sheikh Omar, involved in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist inJanuary-February-2002.  He actually surrendered to a former official of Pakistan's Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI), who was then posted as the Home Secretary of Punjab in Lahore.
  
  
• Abu Zubaidah, described by US officials, as the No. 3 man in Al Qaeda, after the death of Mohammed Atefduring the US air strikes in Afghanistan.  He was arrested from a hide-out of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET)of Pakistan at Faislabad in Punjab on March 28,2002, and flown to Diego Garcia.
  
  
• Ramzi Binalshibh arrested in Karachi on September 11, 2002.
  
  
• Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

The Pakistani authorities strictly followed this procedure in the Daniel Pearl case  and have till nowrefused to hand over Sheikh Omar to the US authorities.  He has been sentenced to death by a Pakistanicourt, but his appeal against the death sentence has not yet been disposed off.  Their refusal to handhim over to the US for interrogation and trial in the US is due to his past linkages with the ISI, hisself-confessed  role as the king-pin of the ISI's terrorist operations in Indian territory and hisreported claim, as made to the Karachi Police during his interrogation, that during a visit to Kandahar before9/11 he had come to know of Al Qaeda's plans for the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US and had passed on theinformation to Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq, the present Director-General of the ISI, who was then the Corps Commanderin Peshawar. 

The Pakistani authorities were worried that if he made these disclosures to the US interrogators, the USmight be constrained to act against Pakistan.

In the case of the other five, the Pakistani authorities had no hesitation in informally handing them overto US officials without following the due process of law since they were apparently confident that these fivewere unlikely to implicate Pakistan in any acts of terrorism during their interrogation by US agencies. 

Sheikh Omar was an UK resident of Pakistani origin and Abu Zubaidah, a Palestinian.  Binalshibh is aYemeni and the other three are stated to beYemeni-Balochis, of mixed Yemeni-Balochi parentage.  There isconsiderable confusion about the nationalities of Ramzi Yousef and Khalid.  Some past reports that theywere Kuwaiti nationals had been denied by the Kuwaiti authorities. Pakistani authorities had denied that theywere Pakistani nationals. 

Ramzi Yousef entered the US as an Iraqi national fleeing persecution from the Saddam Hussein Government,participated in carrying out the explosion and fled the US with a Pakistani passport issued by the PakistaniConsulate in New York. From this, sections of the Pakistani media used to refer to him and Khalid as Pakistaninationals of Iraqi origin.

When Abu Zubaidah was arrested, US officials had projected him as the most significant catch which waslikely to disrupt future Al Qaeda operations.  Their claims were belied by the series of terroriststrikes thereafter in Pakistan and othert countries.  Similar claims made after the arrest of Binalshibhwere belied by the terrorist strikes in Bali and Mombasa.

The fact that neither of them could help in the prevention of the terrorist strikes that followed showedthat while they might have been knowledgeable about the acts of terrorism of the past in which they hadparticipated, they had little knowledge of the operations planned for the future.  This is because theoperations of bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) after 9/11 are being planned and carried out bythe dregs of the various components of the IIF acting autonomously without any central planning andco-ordination.

Even though bin Laden had claimed responsibility for these terrorist strikes in his Al Jazeera broadcast ofNovember 12, 2002, it is uncertain  whether he himself had any advance knowledge of these strikes bydifferent local units of the IIF.  It is doubtful whether the  arrest of Khalid would cause anymajor disruptions in the operations of the dregs of the IIF spread out in Asia.  Claims that his arrestcould deliver a serious blow to terrorist operations in S. E. Asia are unduly over-optimistic and unwarranted.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory Committee,Observer ResearchFoundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter)