US Arrests Undercover Operative

BRITISH anti-terrorist police were forced to arrest 12 suspects last week - two after a high-speed car chase through busy suburban streets - because a US official accidentally revealed the name of an al Qaeda double-agent, according to intelligence sources.

They said the American official confirmed to a US newspaper that Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, the terrorist network's leading communications expert, was the source of new information on al Qaeda's targeting of financial buildings in Washington, New York, and Newark.
Khan had been arrested in Lahore on July 13, and subsequently "turned" by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Agency. When his name appeared in print, he was working for a combined ISI/CIA task force, sending encrypted e-mails to key al Qaeda figures in the hope of pinpointing their locations and intentions.

Some of the individuals he contacted had already sent encoded replies when his cover was blown.

The breaking news abruptly ended the Pakistani operation and sent a shockwave across British and American counter-terrorist agencies.
British police had to mount raids in Greater London and Lancashire the next day, to prevent suspects disappearing as a result of the announcement of Khan's capture and the intelligence gleaned from his computer discs.

Some were taken by armed officers in shops and on the street. Two were captured after a high-speed pursuit through busy streets in Blackburn, Lancashire. Such arrests are normally carried out at night or just before dawn to minimise the risk to the public and catch targeted individuals at their lowest physical ebb.

A British counter-terrorist spokesman refused to say why the arrests were made in daylight, but confirmed "it would be a fair assessment to say there was an element of urgency". He added: "On occasion, something can happen to prompt us to move faster than we normally would have liked."

It is understood that a number of those detained in the UK were already under surveillance, although five suspects are thought to have slipped the net and gone to ground.

One of the 12 arrested last Tuesday has already been released without charge.
Khan, a gifted student from Karachi, who studied in Britain and speaks English well, is believed to have made a detailed reconnaissance of Heathrow airport in November and December last year, while living in Reading.

Information he gave after his detention by a CIA-supervised snatch operation by Pakistani special forces led the authorities to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian with a £17m bounty on his head for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.
Khan's wife is the sister of what intelligence sources describe as "a senior ranking figure" in the Taliban, the hardline Islamic group which ruled Afghanistan until the US-led invasion in 2001.
A British security source said: "Khan's voluntary co-operation is potentially the biggest breakthrough against al Qaeda since the war on terrorism began."

The computer expert had travelled to Britain four times on indulgence tickets obtained through his father, who works for Pakistani Airlines.
Babar Ahmad, 30, a British citizen from Tooting, south London, arrested last week in a separate operation, is facing extradition to the US on charges of terrorist fund-raising. He has been named in the US media as a relative of Khan.
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RITISH anti-terrorist police were forced to arrest 12 suspects last week - two after a high-speed car chase through busy suburban streets - because a US official accidentally revealed the name of an al Qaeda double-agent, according to intelligence sources.
They said the American official confirmed to a US newspaper that Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, the terrorist network's leading communications expert, was the source of new information on al Qaeda's targeting of financial buildings in Washington, New York, and Newark.
Khan had been arrested in Lahore on July 13, and subsequently "turned" by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Agency. When his name appeared in print, he was working for a combined ISI/CIA task force, sending encrypted e-mails to key al Qaeda figures in the hope of pinpointing their locations and intentions.

Some of the individuals he contacted had already sent encoded replies when his cover was blown.
The breaking news abruptly ended the Pakistani operation and sent a shockwave across British and American counter-terrorist agencies