Captured al-Qaida suspect offering good information

LONDON - A newly arrested al-Qaida operative is providing valuable insight into the inner workings of Osama bin Laden's network as the United States remains on alert for attacks, U.S. officials and a diplomat in Africa told the Associated Press.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, has much to say. His life has tracked al-Qaida's evolution from a tightly organized network assaulting prominent U.S. targets to a looser group struggling to maintain momentum.

Ghailani, once on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list with a $5-million bounty for the 1998 embassy bombings, was apprehended last month in Pakistan during a sweep that netted more than 20 al-Qaida suspects in that country and led to more than a dozen arrests in Britain.

Attention surrounding the arrests has focused on another suspect, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged al-Qaida computer expert. But Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said, "The most important arrest that has been made of late has been that of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani."

While U.S. officials agree Ghailani is an important catch, they are trying to figure out what role the 5-foot-3 Tanzanian played in al-Qaida at the time of his arrest. Some say he was an emerging leader, others aren't so sure.

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden has always found a use for Ghailani, from laundering money in West African diamond markets ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks, to planning the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa, to linking up in eastern Pakistan with up and coming al-Qaida plotters.

The arrests of Ghailani and Khan are believed to have helped disrupt plans to launch attacks in coming months - computers from the two contained photographs of potential financial targets in the United States - in New York, New Jersey and Washington - and London's Heathrow Airport, as well as pictures of underpasses beneath several buildings in London.

The photos were part of surveillance by suspected al-Qaida plotters in 2000 and 2001, but the Bush administration considered them another sign al-Qaida might be planning attacks.

Ghailani is cooperating with interrogators and one U.S. official said Ghailani is providing valuable insight into how al-Qaida operates. But the official wouldn't elaborate.

A diplomat in Africa, who is familiar with Ghailani's case, said there are indications Ghailani recently made contact with militants on the continent. The diplomat could not provide details, but Ghailani was captured July 25 with two South Africans who Pakistani officials said were plotting attacks on tourist sites in their home country.

South African officials have dismissed the reported threats, but Feroz Ibrahim, believed to be in his 30s, and Zubair Ismail, in his 20s, were found with several maps of South African cities. And Ghailani's major al-Qaida roles have come in the network's Africa operations.

Known among his al-Qaida peers as Ahmed the Tanzanian, Ghailani was in 1997 introduced to recruits as "a friend of al-Qaida," bomber Mohammed Sadiq Odeh told the FBI, according to an official transcript of his interrogation.

Born in 1974, Ghailani grew up in Zanzibar, an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania that was once the seat of the Sultanate of Oman. Now part of Tanzania, Zanzibar remains 95 percent Muslim and retains an Arab flavor, its harbors filled with wooden dhows and skies pierced by the minarets of mosques.

Ghailani attended the mosques growing up, and in his 20s is believed to have dedicated himself to Islam and became a tabligh, or missionary.

It's not clear if Ghailani was playing an active role in al-Qaida in the last two years or if he was recently called back into action, said a U.S. official.

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