A Saudi al Qaeda operative believed to have been involved with the July 2005 London bombings was detained by Pakistani security forces during a raid on a village near the northwestern city of Peshawar. Six other al Qaeda operatives were also detained.
The Saudi was identified as Zabi ul Taifi and was described as a senior operative in the July 7, 2005, bombings in London that killed 52 civilians and wounded more than 770 others. Three suicide bombs struck on underground trains while another bomber detonated on a double-decker bus.
Taifi and his cohorts were captured in a “militant den,” Geo News reported based on a tip from Pakistani intelligence sources. The al Qaeda operatives were holed up in the village of Bara Qadeem.
“The men were believed to have planned attacks on trucks taking supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan and they included four Arabs and three Afghans,” Reuters reported. The attacks on NATO supply convoys and shipping terminals have forced the Pakistan government to shut down the vital Khyber Pass four times since September 2008.
Western officials were said to have observed the raids, villagers told Reuters.
Three of the London 7/7 bombers have been directly traced back to Pakistan’s tribal areas. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader and one of the four suicide bombers, and bombers Hasib Hussain and Shehzad Tanweer traveled to training camps in northern Pakistan prior to conducting the attacks.
Khan recorded a martyrdom videotape produced by As Sahab, al Qaeda’s media arm. Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second-in-command, also appeared on the tape. Khan also trained with Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda’s Indonesian affiliate.
US intelligence believes al Qaeda has reconstituted its external operations network in Pakistan’s lawless, Taliban-controlled tribal areas. The US has struck at these external cells using unmanned Predator aircraft and other means in an effort to disrupt al Qaeda’s external network and decapitate the leadership.
As of last summer, al Qaeda operated 157 known training camps. Al Qaeda has been training terrorists holding Western passports to conduct attacks, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.
The US strikes inside Pakistan’s tribal areas killed seven senior al Qaeda leaders during 2008. All of the leaders were involved in supporting al Qaeda’s external operations directed at the West.
Abu Laith al Libi, a senior military commander in Afghanistan, was killed in a strike in North Waziristan in January 2008.
Abu Sulayman Jazairi, al Qaeda’s external operations chief, was killed in a strike in Bajaur in March 2008.
Abu Khabab al Masri, al Qaeda’s weapons of mass destruction chief, and several senior members of his staff were killed in a strike in South Waziristan in July 2008.
Khalid Habib, the leader of al Qaeda’s paramilitary forces in the tribal areas, was killed in North Waziristan in October 2008.
Abu Jihad al Masri, the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Group and member of al Qaeda’s top council, was also killed in North Waziristan in October 2008.
Osama al Kini and his senior aide Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were killed during a New Year’s Day airstrike in South Waziristan. Kini was al Qaeda operations chief in Pakistan. Both men were behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others.
4 Comments
great news! hopefully their capture can lead to more top arrests
Now what happens? Pakistan has a history of releasing captured Al Qaeda leaders. The complexity of the Pakistan landscape is huge. The army is fighting hard, the human loss is real significant with no end in sight. Keep up the good work reporting.
Now the question is, do these men get to make their own transportation and security arrangements, including the obligatory hunger stop at the McDonalds drive through, and a little unsupervised private time with their God at the local mosque? Of course one would expect to pray at said mosque without being encumbered with handcuffs or leggings or having brutish guards hanging over you with loaded guns.
Pakistan wanted to show they mean business to the new U S Administration. In few weeks from now, they will show they mean business to their other patrons by releasing him in the open. Pleasing one customer at a time!. Not much to it…