Al-Qa'ida leader's notebook may reveal more attack plans

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American investigators are examining a notebook belonging to a senior al-Qa'ida leader, which they believe could contain details of further planned attacks on the US.

The notebook, property of al-Qa'ida's head of operations, Abu Zubeida, was seized when US and Pakistani officials arrested him in the city of Faisalbad last month.

Intelligence officials believe Mr Zubeida was being groomed to take over the leadership of the network from Osama bin Laden.

One American defence official said yesterday the notebook contained information that might indicate more terrorist attacks were being planned. "Are these his ideas, his plans, his musings?" asked the official.

Mr Zubeida – recovering in American custody at an undisclosed location from gunshot wounds inflicted when he was arrested – has apparently already given interrogators important information.

Last week a terror alert made to financial institutions in the US north-east was based on information from him. This week, he claimed al-Qa'ida knew how to make a so-called radioactive "dirty bomb".

Whether Mr Zubeida is providing genuine leads or spreading misinformation is impossible to know. "He's talking, but the issue is sorting out what's true and what's not, what is reality and what isboasting," one US official said. "That's going to take time."

To test the information, officials can put his claims to other al-Qa'ida prisoners, check them against existing intelligence or feed them back to Mr Zubeida later to see how he responds. But officials say the prisoner is very intelligent and experienced enough to know many of the mind games of modern interrogation.

Palestinian-born Mr Zubeida, 31, is said to have run the Afghan camp where many of the 11 September hijackers trained, and is alleged to have overseen several al-Qa'ida terrorist operations, including the plot to blow up Los Angeles international airport in late 1999.

* The chief prosecutor in the trial in Karachi of Muslim militants charged with the kidnap and murder of the Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl said yesterday he felt his life was in danger. Raja Quereshi said two of the four accused threatened him and another prosecutor by putting their hands to their faces in a Pakistani gesture that suggests they would "take care" of them later.

British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is accused with three others in a trial closed to the press and public. They deny murder, kidnap and terrorism.