PNP: Arrest of Sept. 11 ‘brains’ may provide clues on terror attacks

The arrest of suspected key al-Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan could help unravel details of past and present terror plots, including planned bombings in the Philippines and Singapore, police officials who once hunted him in Manila said yesterday.

Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was captured on Saturday in a joint raid by CIA and Pakistani agents, then taken by US authorities to an undisclosed place, Pakistani officials said.

"This is a big setback, a vacuum in leadership that would affect al-Qaeda’s plans for now," Philippine National Police intelligence director Chief Superintendent Roberto Delfin told The Associated Press.

Delfin said authorities stumbled on one of the first troves of information about Mohammed when they discovered an al-Qaeda hideout in Manila in 1995 and seized a laptop computer that contained his only known pictures and other data.

Mohammed was in Manila in the mid-1990s, allegedly to direct the operations of an al-Qaeda cell that plotted to bomb US airliners flying out of Asia and assassinate Pope John Paul II, who visited Manila in 1995, Delfin said. The cell was led by his nephew, convicted World Trade Center conspirator Ramzi Yousef, he said.

Western and Philippine intelligence reports have alleged that Mohammed masterminded and funded planned suicide bombings of the US and Israeli embassies in Manila two years ago. Those terror plans were later shifted to Singapore because of tight security at the embassies in the Philippines, the reports said.

But the Singapore bombing plots also fell through when Singapore authorities tracked down and arrested suspected members of the militant Jemaah Islamiyah group who allegedly were to carry out the attacks, the reports said.

A confidential Western intelligence report, shared with the Philippine government, said Mohammed allegedly directed and provided funds in August 2001 to suspected al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, who allegedly directed the bombing plots in the Philippines and Singapore in al-Qaeda’s behalf. Jabarah was arrested in Oman last year, then transferred to detention in the US northeast.

"The arrest of Mohammed will hopefully fill up the gap and loose ends in our information on terrorist plans, previous and future," Delfin said.

A naturalized Pakistani who was born in Kuwait, Mohammed, 37, is on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list and allegedly had a hand in many of al-Qaeda’s major attacks.

The US government had offered a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his capture.

A former top police intelligence official who led a group that hunted for Mohammed and Yousef in Manila said Mohammed projected himself to people as a classy Middle Eastern businessman fluent in English while plotting terror attacks in the shadows.

While allegedly directing terrorist plots in the Philippines, Mohammed took scuba diving lessons with Yousef, lounged at coffee shops in Metro Manila’s five-star hotels and once flew a rented helicopter over the clinic of a Filipino dentist he was courting to impress her, the official said. Delfin said Mohammed also sold carpets on the side. — Christina Mendez