US and Pakistani officials said they were questioning key al-Qaeda suspect Ramzi Binalshibh yesterday after arresting him in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks he is accused of helping to plan.
Pakistan's government added that a second high-level al-Qaeda suspect was also being held after a series of raids in the sprawling port city of Karachi this week which have netted a total of 12 foreign suspects and left two dead.
Binalshibh, who is wanted by Germany for his alleged role in planning and carrying out the hijacked plane attacks on the US, is one of the most important members of al-Qaeda to be taken into custody over the past year.
A US official said Binalshibh was captured in Karachi by Pakistani authorities with help from the FBI and CIA.
US officials have said the Yemeni national, who was refused a visa into the US at least four times before Sept. 11 last year, wanted to join the 19 hijackers involved in last year's attack.
In Pakistan, officials said Binalshibh and four other suspected al-Qaeda militants had been arrested on Wednesday after a three-hour gunbattle, and said they were being questioned at a secure location inside Pakistan.
"He was arrested during this operation," Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told reporters in Karachi.
At least one other raid was conducted in Karachi on Monday night, Haider's ministry later said in a statement, and a total of 12 foreigners were being held.
Haider said Pakistan was ready to hand the suspects over to the US authorities if there was evidence they were involved in terrorist activities. But the German government said that it also wanted to try Binalshibh.
"We in Germany have issued an international arrest warrant that we want to enforce. If there are competing interests we must come to an agreement with other countries," German Interior Minister Otto Schily told Germany's ARD television in Copenhagen.
Binalshibh was one of the roommates of Mohamed Atta -- the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers -- in Hamburg, Germany.
Binalshibh is suspected of helping plan attacks and was very prominent in the Hamburg cell. His capture was considered a key development in the US goal of destroying the network, officials said.
Binalshibh was not as high in the organization as Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in March and turned over to US authorities.
But the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said yesterday that Binalshibh was a rising star in the al-Qaeda network and could have been the leader of the Hamburg cell, rather than Atta.
It said he had also become something of an icon within the movement, adding that many Taliban fighters had been found carrying his photograph.
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