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Morocco arrests al-Qaida operative
Recruiter nicknamed 'The Bear' considered one of the top 25 bin Laden followers
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
WASHINGTON -- Moroccan authorities have arrested a senior al-Qaida recruiter known as "The Bear" who is suspected of plotting attacks against Western interests in Morocco, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Abu Zubair al-Haili, a Saudi who weighs more than 300 pounds, is considered among the top 25 al-Qaida lieutenants of Osama bin Laden.
Before Sept. 11, he ran some of bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. During the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, he helped evacuate al-Qaida operatives from the country, officials said.
He has been in Moroccan custody since early last week, officials said. How he came to Morocco is unclear.
Al-Haili was a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, the senior al-Qaida operations chief whom U.S. authorities captured in Pakistan in March.
Like Zubaydah, al-Haili was central to al-Qaida's international recruiting network, accepting recruits into training and placing them in overseas cells, officials said.
Al-Haili has not been tied to specific al-Qaida terrorist operations, but officials said his knowledge of al-Qaida operations and terrorist cells would be useful to interrogators.
U.S. authorities are believed to have access to whatever information al-Haili provides interrogators.
His arrest is the latest in a series of breaks in the U.S. war on terrorism, both in Morocco and elsewhere.
On Monday, three alleged Saudi al-Qaida members were charged in connection with a plot to bomb U.S. and British warships crossing the Straits of Gibraltar between Morocco and Spain.
The Moroccans had previously arrested Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who allegedly recruited chief Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta into al-Qaida in Germany. Zammar, a German of Syrian descent, was sent to Syria, where he remains in custody, according to a German intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
In Saudi Arabia, authorities announced yesterday that they had detained 11 Saudis, an Iraqi and a Sudanese, in connection with plots to attack targets in the country.
The Sudanese man, Abu Huzifa, has admitted he fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. warplane near Prince Sultan Air Base, south of the Saudi capital of Riyadh, according to a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The missile apparently missed; the launch went undetected.
Huzifa is suspected of being an al-Qaida cell leader, the official said. He was detained by Sudanese authorities in his home country and turned over to Saudi Arabia.
Separately, Pakistan has deported to the United States an American who was detained while trying to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.
The State Department said the man, who was taken into custody by Pakistani authorities on May 4 for visa violations, is not believed to have terrorist links and is not under arrest or detention in the United States.
Spokesman Richard Boucher said a second American was detained in Pakistan on May 27 and is still being held. Boucher had no other details except to say that a U.S. consular official was in phone contact with him.
Pakistani sources said the two were Afghan Americans and identified them as Mohammed Tayyab and Asfar Khan.
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