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'Top lieutenant to bin Laden' held in Pakistan

Andrew Buncombe
Monday 01 April 2002 00:00 BST
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The US believes it has captured a senior al-Qa'ida lieutenant who was being groomed to take over from Osama bin Laden and was one of the organisers of the 11 September attacks.

It was reported yesterday that officials believe Abu Zubeida, 30, was among around 20 alleged al-Qa'ida members captured last week in Pakistan in a joint raid by American and Pakistani law enforcement officers. He and the other prisoners have been flown to Camp X-Ray at the US naval base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It is likely [it is him]," a senior US official told the New York Times. "He is a very big fish. But we are still trying to determine that it is him."

If Mr Zubeida's identity is confirmed, he would represent the most senior al-Qa'ida figure captured since the US began its military operation last October. There have, however, been previous occasions when the US has misidentified prisoners who it believed were senior figures in the terror network.

Mr Zubeida has been variously described as Mr bin Laden's operations manager, strategic planner and the man selected to help al-Qa'ida regroup in the aftermath of the US operation. It is believed he was dispatched from Afghanistan to Pakistan to ensure senior figures would survive the US attacks.

Mr Zubeida is believed to have played an important role in planning many attacks, including those on New York and Washington and the "millennium plot" to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in late 1999.

"Zubeida is the director of external affairs for al-Qa'ida," one Bush administration official said earlier this year. "He is a very important cog in the machinery and certainly, after bin Laden is gone, would be someone who would take over. He is someone we are extremely interested in."

¿ A grand council, or loya jirga, on Afghanistan's future due to convene between 10 and 16 June to install a new Afghan government will count at least 160 women among its more than 1,500 members. Only six seats are guaranteed for Islamic scholars. Afghanistan's former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, will open the inaugural session in Kabul before retiring once a chairman was elected.

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