U.S. Landmarks Described

Authorities Find Descriptions of Landmarks on Key Al Qaeda Suspect's Laptop

Sept. 17 — Authorities have found pictures and descriptions of United States landmarks and at least one military base as potential targets on a laptop confiscated from a key al Qaeda suspect, ABCNEWS has learned.

Along with Ramzi Binalshibh's laptop, authorities seized his cell phone during his arrest in a raid in Pakistan last week. Authorities consider his capture to be important in terms of gathering intelligence behind the Sept. 11 attacks. The landmarks are not what one would typically expect, "such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty," a law enforcement official told ABCNEWS, speaking on condition of anonymity. They also found a flight simulator program, similar to the kind several of the Sept. 11 hijackers used for training.

FBI, CIA and British authorities are interrogating Binalshibh about specific U.S. targets and other operatives who may still be in the United States.

This information was used in a White House meeting today, during which officials decided to keep the elevated terror alert status at orange.

Binalshibh, 30, is now in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, after being flown out of Pakistan, along with four other suspects.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNEWS that Binalshibh had left Pakistan, but the suspected al Qaeda member was not bound for the United States. Instead, he was headed for a third country for intensive interrogation, the official said.

According to The Associated Press, two Pakistani sources said five al Qaeda suspects, including Binalshibh, had been flown out of Pakistan today.

Earlier today, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that the United States had been given control of Binalshibh, but that final jurisdiction in the case remained to be determined.

"We have control of him. We're talking to him," said the senior official, who asked not to be identified. According to the report, the United States took control of Binalshibh "several days" ago.

Binalshibh, who was captured along with 11 other al Qaeda suspects in an upscale Karachi neighborhood last week, has already been interrogated by the Pakistani intelligence services.

Earlier today, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told reporters that Pakistani officials were satisfied that Binalshibh was the only senior al Qaeda figure captured in the arrests last week.

Pakistani authorities earlier believed they had captured another senior al Qaeda figure in last week's raids, but Haider today retracted the earlier government statement. "The only high-profile suspect is Ramzi [Binalshibh] and the rest are his Yemeni guards. There is no other high-profile suspect with us."

Germany Decides Not to Pursue Extradition

Germany has an international arrest warrant out on Binalshibh for his part in the Hamburg al Qaeda cell, but over the weekend, German Interior Minister Otto Schily said that given that the "terrible attacks of Sept. 11" and the fact that it took place on U.S. soil, "it goes without saying that Americans have priority for his extradition."

Over the weekend, the Bush administration had made it clear that Washington wanted custody of Binalshibh.

A Yemeni national, Binalshibh is one of the most important al Qaeda members to be taken into custody over the past year, although officials say he was not as high in the organization as Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in March.

His arrest came exactly a year after the Sept. 11 attacks and U.S. officials believe that as a head of al Qaeda's military committee, Binalshibh would know much about the terrorist network's codes and tactics.

Days after his capture, both U.S. and Pakistani officials took credit for Binalshibh's arrest, which National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice described as an "important breakthrough" in an interview with ABCNEWS' This Week over the weekend.

Arab Reporter Leads to Suspect

But ABCNEWS has learned that al Qaeda sympathizers blame a journalist from the Arab TV station al Jazeera for Binalshibh's capture.

Yosri Fouda, an Egyptian journalist working for al Jazeera, conducted an exclusive interview with Binalshibh earlier this year, in which the terror suspect boasted that he was an active planner in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, essentially implicating himself.

But ABCNEWS has learned that the FBI became aware that al Jazeera was setting up the interview in June. Pakistani and U.S. officials are believed to have followed the trail of the reporter, although Fouda was unaware his movements were being tracked.

But in an interview with The Washington Post today, Fouda rejected the possibility that U.S. and Pakistani authorities had tailed him.

The interview took place in Pakistan in July for a Sept. 11 anniversary broadcast. In the interview, Binalshibh expressed his thrill with the American death toll and talked of his contempt for U.S. law enforcement.

Investigating Links to Pearl Murder

Binalshibh had tried at least four times to enter the United States before the Sept. 11 attacks and had subsequently acted as a "facilitator and financier" for al Qaeda operations from abroad.

Pakistani officials were also investigating whether Binalshibh was linked to the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

According to The Associated Press, Pakistani police sources said captured suspects in the Pearl case had claimed that the U.S. journalist was slain by three Yemenis. In the past few years, al Qaeda has had particular success in recruiting people from the impoverished Arab nation.

Binalshibh is also suspected of links to the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.

Binalshibh was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case the federal government has filed against Zacarias Moussaoui, the French citizen charged in a six-count terror indictment.

According to an al Jazeera broadcast aired on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Binalshibh was the person who relayed to other al Qaeda leaders the date of the attacks on America.

According to the account, Mohamed Atta called Binalshibh two weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he had "an Egyptian joke and a significant puzzle" for him, which turned out to be code for the date — "two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down," representing 11-9, the European style of writing Sept. 11.

ABCNEWS' David Wright in Pakistan, Brian Ross in New York and Pierre Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2002

Answers

Keep an eye out for the al jazeera reporter's death. It won't be pretty, that's for sure!

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2002