Afghans Say Al Qaeda Suspects Held at Border

11/03/2003| IslamWeb

U.S.-led coalition forces have captured two people suspected of links with al Qaeda and the Taliban on Afghanistan's southern border with Pakistan, an Afghan official said on Tuesday. Separately, U.S. forces in the southeastern Khost region detained a man after finding a cache of anti-personnel mines on Monday, a military spokesman said.

The arrests in Khost and the border town of Spin Boldak came after Pakistani officials said they had detained 10 men since the weekend in the northwestern city of Peshawar for suspected al Qaeda links.

Spin Boldak district administrator Syed Fazal Din Agha did not identify the suspects arrested on Monday.

He told Reuters U.S. and Afghan troops had intensified their search for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members in the border region after a rocket attack on a Pakistani checkpost the same day.

Agha said U.S. aircraft were dropping leaflets in the region and radio messages were being broadcast seeking help in the capture of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden , Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and other Islamic militants.

An intelligence source said at least one of the 10 men arrested in Peshawar was believed to have had contact with bin Laden.

On March 1, Pakistani authorities said they had arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States and one of al Qaeda's top members, in a raid in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said on Monday Mohammed's arrest had already yielded information that should bring security forces closer to capturing bin Laden.

Both bin Laden and Mullah Omar have remained elusive since the Taliban were ousted by the U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban members are thought to have taken refuge in rugged territory along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and U.S. officials said last week they believed bin Laden was hiding in the area.

Pakistani officials say Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi with two other suspects, including Saudi Ahmed al-Hawsawi, alleged to be one of the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban are suspected of being behind repeated, but generally ineffective attacks on U.S. bases in recent months.

U.S. spokesman Colonel Roger King told reporters at the U.S. headquarters at Bagram that the man detained at Khost was held after the discovery of about 50 anti-personnel mines. He said U.S. forces had also found 120 107mm rockets near one of their bases outside the southern city of Kandahar, once a power base of the Taliban.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Pakistani boy looks at posters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden  at a shop in Quetta March 11, 2003. U.S. forces are hunting bin Laden and his followers in Afghanistan  and the lawless tribal areas of western Pakistan. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmo