Pakistan hunts two top al-Qaeda Masterminds
Pakistan Times Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is hunting two top north African al-Qaeda "masterminds" who head one of the terror network's cells, officials said Friday, after cracking a major worldwide al-Qaeda wing plotting new attacks in Britain and the US.

The men, identified as Libyan national Abu Farj and an Egyptian known only as Hamza, are close associates of senior al-Qaeda operatives arrested in a major anti-terror swoop in Pakistan since July-12.

Farj and Hamza "are extremely important al-Qaeda operatives and they are hiding in Pakistan," a foreign news agency qouted a senior official as saying on Friday.

"We are now desperately searching for these two al-Qaeda masterminds with the help of information obtained from the already captured al-Qaeda operatives."

Bounty

Farj and Hamza both had a five million dollar bounty on their heads, offered by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The July arrests of Pakistani computer expert Naeem Noor Khan and Tanzanian suspect in the 1998 US embassy bombings in east Africa, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, led to the capture of senior Al-Qaeda operatives in Britain and a recent high alert in United States cities against possible terror attacks.

Sources said the plots were for attacks "in coming months." Their arrests had broken a major al-Qaeda wing planning attacks by al-Qaeda sleeper cells on Britain and the US in coming months, he said.

Computer Files and E/mail Records

Computer files and email records seized from Ghailani and Khan showed they were communicating with al-Qaeda operatives from the US to South Asia to Southeast Asia, to plan imminent attacks in Britain and the United States.

"Their email records showed correspondence between groups in the UK, the US, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nepal, in which they were exchanging information about targets to be attacked in coming months," the official said.

"Our information so far is that the targets were in America and the UK." The official declined to say what sort of attacks were being planned, nor would he identify the targets.

Their computer files contained detailled surveillance records of key financial institutions in New York and Washington.

The computer records showed that the wing of al-Qaeda was "in regular touch with al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US, Britain, Indonesia, Malaysia and some South Asian countries."

Important Blow

The capture of senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Eisa Al Hindi in Britain was an "important blow" to the network's planning capabilities, he said.

Ghailani, who was indicted in December 1998 for his alleged role in the Africa bombings, had been hiding in Pakistan's northwest tribal region earlier in the year, the news agency said.●