Taylor's Terrorist Ally Arrested in Pakistan
From Marlene Burger in Pretoria, South Africa
Top al-Qaeda terrorists were sheltered by former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor while they built up a war chest from trading in diamonds, United Nations prosecutors claim.
Among those who found refuge in the West African state was Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, arrested 10 days ago in Pakistan in an anti-terror swoop that also netted two South Africans, Dr Faroz Ganchi and Zubair Ishmael.
Ghailani, who had a $25 million bounty on his head, hid out in Liberian military camps from late 1998 until shortly before Taylor was forced to step down a year ago, according to the UN. American authorities had no idea where he was after the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which he masterminded, until the day-long gun battle on July 25 in the Pakistani city of Gujrat between security forces and an al-Qaeda cell that included women and children.
The two South Africans, whose families say they were in Pakistan on a hiking holiday, were among those rounded up.
While intelligence agencies in the US, Britain, Pakistan and South Africa are playing their cards close to their chests over the most recent crackdown on suspected terrorists, details are emerging of a global operation that was launched in the middle of May by America's CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), and culminated in arrests on three continents last week.
It is not yet clear whether the dramatic announcement in May by South African police commissioner Jackie Selebi that several suspected al-Qaeda members had been deported to Jordan, Syria and Britain formed part of the worldwide hunt for Ghailani, another East African bomber, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and a woman, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who were believed to be planning a new wave of attacks on key targets in the US, Britain and South Africa.
Nor have authorities said whether or not Mohammed and Siddiqui are among those arrested in the past week.
What is known is that the address of the safe house in Gujrat, reportedly rented by Dr Ganchi soon after he arrived in Pakistan from Johannesburg on July 10, was obtained from Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, 25, a "computer genius" who headed al-Qaeda's electronic communications network. Khan was arrested in Karachi on July 1 and forced to cooperate with his interrogators.
According to reports, he was "persuaded" to send out encrypted e-mails to al-Qaeda operatives all over the world, asking them to contact him urgently. As their responses flooded in, authorities began rounding up suspects.
They also notified intelligence officials in Dubai that the busy airport in the United Arab Emirates was being used by members of al-Qaeda cells as a transit point.
Ganchi and Ishmael flew from South Africa to Pakistan via Dubai on July 10, while a South African woman, Farida Goolam Mohamed
Ahmed, travelled to London from Johannesburg via Dubai just two days earlier. A week later, she flew to Mexico City and was arrested on July 18 in Texas after wading across the Rio Grande River into the US illegally. Ahmed, whose name was on an FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) watch list, was refused bail and is being interrogated pending her next court appearance at the end of the month.
Late on Friday a Tanzanian national, Shafa Ibrahim, was arrested at the airport in Lahore as he prepared to board an aircraft bound for Dubai, from where he intended flying to South Africa.
Since the arrest early last year of Kenyan embassy bomber Khalfan Mohammed in South Africa, American authorities have repeatedly warned that the African continent is the next battleground against al-Qaeda, due to the porous borders and Islamic sympathies of various countries.
One of 12 suspects arrested in London during the past week, Abu Eisa Al Hindi, was named in the recent US report on the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington as having given a senior al-Qaeda operative in South East Asia, Riduyan Ismuddin, the names of people in South Africa and California who could be called on for help if he had to go to ground.
Al Hindi was arrested in North London last week. He has been identified as "Bilal", the man with who the Pakistani cell was communicating on plans to stage a terror attack at Heathrow Airport.
Further evidence of al-Qaeda's growing presence in Africa lies in a dossier prepared by UN prosecutors at the special war crimes court in Sierra Leone, which has indicted Liberian strongman Taylor in absentia.
They claim that from September 1998 to late 2002 or early 2003, six of the FBI's "most wanted", including Ghailani, amassed an estimated $15 million from trade in diamonds to finance terror operations.
UN investigators said al-Qaeda paid Taylor for protection and lived under his shield for more than five years, at a military camp near the border with Sierra Leone, in government-run hotels in the capital of Monrovia and at one of Taylor's residences in Congo Town.
One of the al-Qaeda men served for a time as a driver for one of Taylor's senior military commanders, General Sam Bockarie. Others met frequently with another Taylor ally, General Issa Sesay.
The report says Dr Siddiqui, who qualified as a microbiologist in America, was in Liberia from June 2001 as the guest of one of Taylor's top lieutenants and acted as liaison between the Al Qaeda gem traders and her superiors in Pakistan.
The FBI issued a global warrant for Siddiqui's arrest in March last year. She is believed to be one of the al- Qaeda operatives who have the expertise to manufacture a chemical, biological or "dirty" nuclear bomb.
Mohammed Ariff, a South African man arrested by Mexican authorities last week for having "strange and puzzling" travel documents and questioned by the FBI, was released on Friday.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa confirmed that Ariff was a South African citizen, but declined to comment further. South African diplomats are still trying to gain consular access to the two men who were arrested in Pakistan more than a week ago, and to the woman detained in Texas.
Taylor, on asylum in Nigeria since he was persuaded to quit power by African leaders, is wanted by the UN backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.
The Nigerian government has repeatedly said that Taylor would only be extradited on the request of an elected government in Liberia.
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