Detainee Is Bin Laden Aide; ‘He Knows Where People Are’

WASHINGTON —  U.S. forces in Pakistan have taken custody of a Saudi-born militant believed to be so critical to Osama bin Laden’s international terrorism network that he could help them identify Al Qaeda cells and operatives around the globe.

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials confirmed Monday that they have netted Abu Zubeida, one of Bin Laden’s top deputies and a potential suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Over the years, officials said,Zubeida helped link Bin Laden’s inner circle with scores of terrorist groups in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. After the Taliban regime collapsed in Afghanistan last fall, officials said, Zubeida also was entrusted with rebuilding Al Qaeda--and plotting future terrorist attacks.

“He knows where [Al Qaeda] people are around the world,” said a U.S. intelligence official who confirmed the captive’s identity. “Plus, we have unambiguous information that he has been planning future terrorist attacks against U.S. interests and allies worldwide. So he is a person well worth catching.”

The capture, especially if Zubeida cooperates during questioning, marks a rare success in the hunt for terrorists that forms the backdrop to the war in Afghanistan. Despite huge cash rewards and a massive U.S. military and intelligence effort, only a handful of top terrorist leaders are known to have been captured or killed since last fall.

Officials say Zubeida may have acted as an intermediary between Bin Laden and the hijackers who seized four jets and crashed them in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people. However, he has not yet been charged or indicted.

U.S. officials have had little success in persuading captured Al Qaeda operatives to disclose significant details in interrogations.

A senior law enforcement official, who also confirmed Zubeida’s capture, said counter-terrorism agents are angling to interrogate him. “There is a fair amount of excitement about this,” he said.

“This guy will be put through the ringer for days and weeks,” said a former senior Clinton administration counter-terrorism official.

“It will take at least 96 hours . . . to get him to spill everything,” said the former official. “If they don’t crack him by then, he is a very tough nut. If not, they will keep going. He is probably having the worst time in his entire life right now.”

William H. Webster, a former FBI and CIA director, said interrogation efforts will “go beyond name, rank and serial number” because Zubeida is considered an unlawful combatant and not a prisoner of war.

“Traditional third-degree would be inappropriate, such as using physical force,” Webster said. “I don’t want to spell out how late they can keep him up before letting him go to bed, but they have a right to aggressively try to gain information from him.”

Webster said interrogators will operate on the assumption that Zubeida knows about terrorist plots that may be in the planning stages.

“This area is very murky. We are feeling our way,” he said. In the current situation, he added, “some will want to go by the book, others will want to throw out the book.”

Zubeida, whose real name is thought to be Zain al-Abidin Mohammed Husain, was captured Thursday in a raid in central Pakistan. Pakistani troops shot him three times in the legs and groin when he tried to escape, U.S. officials said.

He was handed over to U.S. authorities Sunday and was receiving medical care Monday at an undisclosed location, the officials said. He was reported in serious but stable condition.

U.S. officials said they used various forms of visual and technical methods to identify him. One U.S. official said proof of Zubeida’s identity, which he declined to explain, was found Monday.

Zubeida, 31, was a key recruiter for Al Qaeda, officials say. He screened potential candidates, helped arrange their travel to and from training camps in Afghanistan and helped new graduates join or create cells, they allege.

Zubeida communicated with cell members to coordinate specific attacks, U.S. officials say. They say he has been implicated in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, which killed 224 people, and the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen, which killed 17. He also allegedly played a role in the failed plot to bomb a Los Angeles International Airport terminal during the millennium celebrations.

U.S. officials say Zubeida succeeded Mohammed Atef, the Al Qaeda military commander who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in November. “After Atef was killed, he took on an increased operational role,” the intelligence official said.

Zubeida and his aides have been trying to reconstitute Al Qaeda’s command and control center in Pakistan since December, when they apparently fled across the border from Afghanistan during fighting at the Tora Bora cave complex, the officials said.

Zubeida’s group, which included about two dozen Saudis, Moroccans, Sudanese, Egyptians and other non-Afghans, apparently switched safe houses every few weeks to avoid detection. U.S. officials say hundreds of other Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters also may be hiding in Pakistan.

In recent weeks, U.S. intelligence had detected an increase in money transfers and e-mail communications and other evidence indicating a possible plot against the U.S. or its interests abroad.

Excluding Zubeida, officials said U.S. forces and allies have captured only three Al Qaeda leaders and killed nine since fall. The whereabouts of 15 other senior figures, including Bin Laden, are unknown.

The tally is similar for the Taliban, the extremist Islamic regime in Afghanistan that provided sanctuary for Al Qaeda. So far, U.S. and allied forces have killed two and captured four senior Taliban leaders. About 21 others are missing.

U.S. officials clearly hope that Zubeida, or one of several dozen others arrested in raids in Pakistan last week, will help lead them to Bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks.

Although he declined to confirm Zubeida’s capture, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday that Zubeida is “if not the No. 2, very close to the No. 2 person in the organization.”

Relying on the communications intercepts and other evidence supplied by U.S. intelligence, American and Pakistani operatives captured Zubeida and the other suspects in a series of predawn raids Thursday in Faisalabad, Lahore and Multan, all in central Pakistan.

Officials said Zubeida had been using another alias, Abu Ubaid, but admitted his real identity during questioning.

In early 2000, the Clinton administration deployed a team of counter-terrorism experts to Sudan, in part to catch Zubeida.

“We were literally hours behind him . . . and he slipped through our fingers,” recalled a former State Department official involved in the operation.

Zubeida’s role in Al Qaeda came to light last summer in federal court in New York. Ahmed Ressam, who had been convicted in the 1999 plot to bomb LAX, appeared as a government witness at another trial and detailed his understanding of Al Qaeda--and Zubeida’s responsibilities in the organization.

Ressam told the court that Zubeida was “the person in charge” of the Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

“He accepts you or rejects you,” said Ressam, adding that Zubeida paid all expenses at the camps and made travel arrangements for those attending.

Ressam said Zubeida ensured his entry into the camps in early 1998. Ressam said that when he returned home to Montreal seven months later, Zubeida asked him to send some passports for future terrorists to use. Ressam said he never succeeded in getting the passports.