WASHINGTON — A joint team of Pakistani and U.S. agents arrested Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed near Pakistan's capital on Saturday and began interrogating the terrorist who claims to have masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.
Pakistani intelligence agents led the early morning raid on a safe house in Rawalpindi, southwest of Islamabad, arresting Mohammed and an unidentified Middle Eastern man. In another raid, they apprehended a local man believed to have been trying to hide Mohammed from the U.S.-led global dragnet that had been searching for him and had put a $25-million bounty on his head.
Mohammed, who was believed to be 37, was whisked out of Pakistan immediately under extremely tight security and was taken by American military transport to an undisclosed location outside the United States, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
From the moment of his capture at 3 a.m. local time, the CIA and other U.S. counter-terrorism authorities began an urgent effort to disorient and "break" Mohammed, they said. They were attempting to get information from him about planned attacks that could already be in motion in the U.S. and abroad, as well as the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.
There was no immediate indication that those efforts had been successful. But top U.S. and Pakistani officials said they believe Mohammed has encyclopedic knowledge of current Al Qaeda operations, making his arrest perhaps the most significant detention in the war on terrorism.
"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the chief operating officer of Al Qaeda. The effect that his capture will have on Al Qaeda as an organization is devastating. And the effect that it has on the safety of the American people and our allies cannot be overstated," said one U.S. counter-terrorism official. "This is the guy who planned their operations. This is the guy who catalogs and keeps track of their operations."
U.S. officials portrayed Mohammed as the Al Qaeda member posing the gravest threat to Americans. They believe him to be not only the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon but also a co-conspirator in other devastating Al Qaeda terrorist strikes dating to 1993, when he played a role in the bombing of the World Trade Center.
