09/18/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10137

AL-QAIDA SUSPECTS ARRESTED

"Thanks to the efforts of our folks and people in Pakistan," said President George W. Bush, "we captured one of the planners and organizers of [last year’s] September 11^th attack that murdered thousands of people." Mr. Bush was referring to al-Qaida terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh [RAM-see bihn-ah-SHAY-buh]. He was captured this past September 10^th by Pakistani authorities in Karachi and transferred to U.S. custody. Seven other suspected members of Al-Qaida were also arrested. Two other suspects were killed during a three-hour gun battle with Pakistani security forces.

The arrests were the result of close cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan in tracking down al-Qaida terrorists who crossed into Pakistan after the fall of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan. Binalshibh, a citizen of Yemen, was a roommate of Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaida hijacker who flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. Binalshibh is known to have supplied the hijackers with money.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television, Binalshibh described himself as the coordinator of the September 11^th, 2001, attacks. He described the joy that he and his al-Qaida terrorist associates felt while watching the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the deaths of thousands of people from some ninety countries. The interview confirmed al-Qaida's responsibility for the attacks. Those who continue to circulate crackpot charges that Israel or the U.S. itself was behind the attacks should pay close attention to the Binalshibh interview.

Another blow to al-Qaida is the recent arrest of five suspected members of an al-Qaida sleeper cell in Lackawanna, New York. Sleeper cells are groups of terrorists trained and ready to carry out attacks at a designated time and place. The five suspects are American citizens of Yemeni descent who underwent terrorist training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan. A sixth suspect was arrested in a [Persian] Gulf state. He is charged with providing "material support" to al-Qaida terrorists.

International cooperation in the war against terrorism is paying off. More than ninety countries have arrested or detained some two-thousand four-hundred terrorists and their supporters. As President George W. Bush put it, "One by one we are hunting the killers down. We are relentless, we are strong, and we are not going to stop."