Egyptian gets $27-M for Khalid capture

An unidentified Egyptian, described only as "an al-Qaeda foot soldier," will receive $27 million for tipping off US authorities, which led to the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Cable News Network (CNN) reported on Wednesday.

The CNN report datelined Washington said US government sources confirmed previous reports that appeared in a British paper and in Newsweek that the unnamed Egyptian was captured during a raid in Quetta, Pakistan, last month.

The CNN report said officials noted that the unidentified Egyptian was not only entitled to the $25-million award offered by the US government for information that led to Mohammed’s arrest, but that he also demanded an additional $2 million to partially defray the costs of moving his family to Britain.

Sources told the CNN that the Egyptian will be paid the total amount, the report said.

Arrested in a March 1 raid led by Pakistani authorities on a house in the suburbs of Islamabad, Mohammed has been linked to several al-Qaeda attacks in the past five years and was included in the list of most wanted terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI agents are pursuing leads based on information retrieved following the arrest of Mohammed.

The CNN report quoted sources as saying that about 12 investigations using information gathered in the arrest of Mohammed are being conducted in Washington, New York, Los Angeles and other cities.

Authorities are attempting to establish the presence of sleeper cells in the US as they analyze names and other leads in Mohammed’s computer and documents, according to the report.

Among the leads being pursued involved money trail, while agents are checking bank accounts, the report said.

US government sources said Tuesday that evidence had been found that money was transferred into the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, other sources specified that the transfers happened in November 2001.