High-level al-Qaida figure is captured

[David]

AP

WASHINGTON - Authorities have captured a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon announced Friday.

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to say when or where Mohammad Rahim was captured — or by whom — announcing only that he was handed over by the CIA to the Pentagon earlier this week and is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But in a memo obtained by The Associated Press, CIA Director Michael Hayden told agency employees that Rahim was detained last summer, and he suggested Rahim was not captured by American authorities.

"Rahim's detention in the summer of 2007 was a blow to more than one terrorist network," Hayden said of the Afghani. "He gave aid to al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other anti-coalition militants."

Hayden said "Rahim was eventually moved into US custody — and-given his past and the continuing threat he presented to American interests — placed in CIA's interrogation program."

Since early in the global war on terrorism, the CIA has held captured suspects in secret prisons and interrogated them. Rahim became the 16th so called "high-value" suspect handed over to the military by the CIA and now being held at Guantanamo.

"Rahim is a tough, seasoned jihadist," Hayden said. "His combat experience, which dates back to the 1980s, includes plots against US and Afghan targets."

Rahim is a close associate of bin Laden and has ties to al-Qaida organizations throughout the Middle East, Whitman said. Officials said Rahim helped prepare the al-Qaida hideout at Tora Bora — a mountain area full of warrens used by bin Laden during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

He assisted al-Qaida's escape from the area during the U.S. operation to try to catch the al-Qaida leader, officials said.

"In 2001, as the terrorist haven in Afghanistan was collapsing, Rahim helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout," Hayden said. "When al-Qaida had to flee from there, Rahim was part of that operation, too."

Officials allege that he sought chemicals for one attack on US forces in Afghanistan, and tried to recruit individuals with access to American military facilities there.

"While that record alone would justify Rahim's capture, it does not fully describe his place in the terrorist infrastructure," Hayden said. "Proficient in several languages and familiar with the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, he was also an extremist facilitator and courier with high-level contacts."

Rahim is perhaps best known in counterterror circles as a personal facilitator and translator for bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders, Hayden said.

Hayden said the most powerful tool against terror suspects "is good intelligence work, including cultivation of the partnerships overseas that were so critical to ending the terrorist career of Mohammad Rahim."