WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, described as al Qaeda’s chief in the Gulf and suspected of planning the bombing of the American warship USS Cole, is in U.S. custody, officials said Thursday.
“He’s a top al Qaeda operational planner for the Arabian Peninsula, he was captured in recent weeks and is currently in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location,” one official said.
Sources disclosed last week that a top al Qaeda leader had been captured in recent weeks, but his identity was not revealed until Thursday. U.S. officials have said he has been cooperating during interrogations.
Al-Nashiri, who was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, was among the top dozen al Qaeda leaders sought by U.S. authorities.
He is believed to have played a key role in the October 2000 Cole bombing, U.S. officials said. A small boat filled with explosives pulled up alongside the U.S. warship in the port of Aden, Yemen, and blew up — blasting a huge hole in the side of the warship and killing 17 Americans.
“His capture really is a serious blow to al Qaeda because in terms of the Persian Gulf, operationally he was the one calling the shots,” another U.S. official said.
Al-Nashiri’s ties to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden date from the 1980s in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Soviet invasion. “He has very long and close ties to Osama bin Laden dating back to the Afghanistan Mujahideen days,” the official said.
The United States blames al Qaeda for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America that killed 3,000 people and has vowed to destroy the network. It was unknown whether al-Nashiri was involved in those hijacked-plane attacks, an official said.
Bin Laden has evaded yearlong efforts by U.S. forces to find him and appears to have survived the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan.
U.S. authorities believe al-Nashiri also helped train some of those involved in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in one day that killed 264 people.
Al-Nashiri has expertise in military and explosives training and was “believed to have been involved in planning significant new attacks against U.S. targets in the Arabian Peninsula and possibly elsewhere,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
He has also gone by the names Mullah Bilal and Umar Muhammad al-Harazi.
If al-Nashiri cooperates with his U.S. captors, “all of this adds to our ability to go out and arrest some more,” said Stanley Bedlington, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst. “There could be another huge bomb attack at any time but nevertheless there has been outstanding progress in this battle.”
He added: “This is a major coup. One more.”
Other top al Qaeda members in U.S. custody include Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh who were captured separately in Pakistan earlier this year.
U.S. officials have said both of them, who are being held at an undisclosed location overseas, have provided important information during interrogations.
