WASHINGTON – A senior Asiatic al-Qaida operative desired in the 2002 Bali bombings has been inactive in Pakistan, a rare high-profile capture in the war on imp that could provide priceless info most the methodicalness and doable future plots.
Umar Patek, a suspected member of the al-Qaida linked crusader assemble Jemaah Islamiyah, was inactive earlier this assemblage in Pakistan, external info sources said Tuesday.
It's not country if Pakistan stumbled on Patek or his capture was the termination of a info tip. Details most what he was doing in Pakistan also rest murky, upbringing questions most whether he was there to organisation an move with al-Qaida's top effective body as the 10-year day of the Sept. 11, 200l looms over the U.S.
Patek, 40, a Javanese Semite man, is well-known to info agencies across the world. He's believed to hit served as the group's help earth man in the spot bombings that left 202 grouping dead, some of them foreigners.
The U.S. was substance a $1 million reward for the arrest of the offense Patek — who's famous as the "little Arab " — in the move that killed heptad Americans.
News of his arrest came from digit info officials in state and Philippines. Patek's literal whereabouts were not directly known. Both spoke on information of anonymity, citing the sense of the information.
The discourse of what to do with him could embellish a key indicator of how U.S. President Barack Obama module appendage major terrorist suspects captured abroad. However, American officials declined to interpret on the case.
Under former President martyr W. Bush, he probable would hit been touched into the CIA's network of info prisons. For instance, digit of Patek's accused co-conspirators in the spot bombing, Hambali, spent eld in the prison system and is today being held in metropolis Bay.
But the CIA's info prisons are closed and Obama is trying to blank Guantanamo, not add new inmates.
Patek is believed to hit been among a assemble of Indonesians, Malaysians and Filipinos who cosmopolitan to Afghanistan and Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s for training and fighting.
On their convey to Southeast Asia, they formed Jemaah Islamiyah, blamed for a string of suicide bombings targeting nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, and a Western embassy in Indonesia. Together more than 260 grouping hit died.
Patek fled to the southern state after the Bali bombings, seeking country and training with both the MILF and later, Abu Sayyaf, section experts hit said.
But he is believed to hit remained hard geared in Jemaah Islamiyah dealings at home. His arrest in Pakistan is probable to improve questions over how much a high-profile terrorist crapper movement across planetary borders. There are also probable to be competing interests among info agencies as apiece jockeys for curb over Patek.
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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Chris Brummitt in Islamabad, Pakisan; and Matt Apuzzo in pedagogue D.C. contributed to this report.
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