Pakistan detains al-Qaida fugitive Nasar
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-02 19:24
A top al-Qaida leader whose links stretch from Afghan terror training camps
to extremist networks operating throughout Europe has been detained in
neighboring Pakistan and possibly handed over to American authorities, according
to a U.S. law enforcement official.
Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a Syrian who also holds Spanish citizenship, was
captured in a November 2005 sting in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta
that left one person dead, said the American official, who declined to be
identified further because the matter is sensitive.
The official, who spoke to The Associated Press late last week, said Nasar,
who is also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, may now be in U.S. custody but did not
specify where. He declined to comment further.
U.S. military officials aware of the detention of terror
suspects at American prison facilities in Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had no immediate information Tuesday
on whether Nasar had been incarcerated at either jail.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official told The AP from the capital,
Islamabad, that Nasar had been flown out of Pakistan to an undisclosed
destination "some time ago."
"I only know that he is not here. But, I do know that
Syrian authorities had also requested to get him back," said the official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity because of sensitive nature of his work.
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