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March 16, 2003
LAHORE, Pakistan -- Building on information from a captured lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, Pakistani authorities captured a suspected key al-Qaida figure Saturday -- a man U.S. government sources say oversees communication among the terror network's operatives.
The suspect, Yassir al-Jaziri, was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said, adding that al-Jaziri is among the leading terrorists wanted by the United States.
American government sources familiar with the arrest confirmed al-Jaziri was captured by Pakistani authorities near Lahore on Saturday. He is not on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
U.S. and Pakistani forces have intensified their search for al-Qaida's leadership in Pakistan since the group's suspected No. 3 man, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was arrested March 1. Security forces have been combing the region along the Afghan border for bin Laden after Mohammed told his interrogators he met the terror chief there recently.
Pakistan's Ahmed told AP that information garnered from Mohammed led to the arrest of al-Jaziri. The U.S. sources said American intelligence provided information that led to the arrest, but Americans did not participate in his capture, the sources said.
Al-Jaziri is among the two dozen most wanted figures in al-Qaida, the sources told the Associated Press.
Court documents describe al-Jaziri as an Algerian-Moroccan dual national responsible for al-Qaida's business interests. But it was not immediately known where al-Jaziri stands in the hierarchy of the al-Qaida network.