A rchive Date
[ 04-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/03/02/35617-cp.html
Al-Qaida figure was plotting attacks, U.S. counter-terrorism officials say
By ROBERT RUSSO
Mon, March 3, 2003
WASHINGTON (CP) - U.S. authorities frantically combed through documents seized from the hideout of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to track down his al-Qaida sleepers before they scatter or carry out acts of terrorism in revenge for his capture.
Al-Qaida's field general was being aggressively interrogated Monday in an undisclosed location by intelligence agents racing to thwart future atrocities. Mohammed was actively plotting terrorist attacks against targets in the United States and the Persian Gulf when he was arrested, U.S. counter-terrorism officials said.
Intelligence about his activities was partly behind a decision by the U.S. government to put the country on the second-highest level of alert, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said.
"Some of the concerns we had that caused us to raise the threat level were attributable to the planning he was involved in," Ridge said.
Mohammed essentially admitted being the principal plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks during an interview last June with the Al-Jazeera television network.
Getting Mohammed to talk quickly is essential, but unlikely, one intelligence expert said.
"These guys almost never talk, unless it's bull," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA chief of counter-terrorism.
Cannistraro said computer drives, disks, cellphone records and other documents would be more immediately useful.
"The first 72 hours are critical in getting any use of the seized information."
There is a danger that al-Qaida operations currently in the planning stage may be executed immediately because Osama bin Laden's foot soldiers will now fear being exposed during Mohammed's interrogation.
Mohammed, the No.3 man on al-Qaida's organizational flow chart, may also be one of the few people in the world who knows where bin Laden may be hiding.
The timing of the capture of al-Qaida's operations chief could scarcely have been better for the Bush administration.
U.S. President George W. Bush has been under pressure at home from critics who complain he has neglected the effort to eliminate the more imminent al-Qaida threat while he focused on Iraq.
While poring through documents captured in the Rawalpindi, Pakistan villa where Mohammed was seized Saturday, CIA interrogators are undoubtedly trying to get inside his head.
U.S. officials insist they eschew physical, violent torture. Whether all of America's allies live by a similar code has always been a source of conjecture.
Exactly where Mohammed is being held may influence how he's treated during questioning. Pakistani officials insisted Monday he is still in their custody, one day after saying he had been spirited away.
U.S. officials suggested they had him somewhere outside Pakistan and nowhere near the United States where due process laws would apply.
The White House said Mohammed will be pressured, but interrogated humanely.
"The standard for any type of interrogation of somebody in American custody is to be humane and to follow all international laws and accords dealing with this type subject," said spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"That is precisely what has been happening and exactly what will happen."
What was less clear in Fleischer's response was how far interrogators could go while remaining "humane."
Sleep deprivation, threats of torture and other techniques intended to confuse, frighten or wear down a captive might not necessarily be considered torture.
"We don't sanction torture but there are psychological and other ways that we can get most of what we need," said Senator Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who co-chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Any interrogator begins by trying to get a prisoner to start talking.
Mohammed lived lavishly while he was al-Qaida's Asian chief in Manila, kept a Filipina girlfriend and regularly visited the Phillipines' captial's notorious red-light district. Those incongruities in a man sworn to defend a conservative strain of Islam might provide a point of departure for interrogation.
Even if he refuses to discuss imminent threats, Cannistraro said Mohammed will eventually provide counter-terrorism officials with a deeper understanding of al Qaida and its history.
Mohammed was reportedly at the centre of every major al-Qaida operation over the last decade.
He was the first of bin Laden's cronies to dream up the notion of flying passenger jets into buildings. He was also responsible for supplying money and funds to al-Qaida soldiers after conceiving their operations.
Former St. Catharines, Ont. student Muhammad Mansur Jabarah said he was given money and instructions by Mohammed for attacks in Southeast Asia against "soft" targets frequented by Americans, according to a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report on Jabarah obtained by the New York Times.
Jabarah's targets included western embassies in Asia as well as bus stations and bars frequented by Americans.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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