Author: David Rohde
Publication: The New York Times
Date: November 1, 2002
As the United States hunted worldwide
for leaders of Al Qaeda this summer, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a key planner
of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was living quietly in an apartment about
10 miles from the American Consulate here, according to Pakistani law enforcement
officials.
He and his Qaeda friends spent their
days logging on to the Internet via satellite telephones. At night, neighbors
saw them playing cards and laughing.
The story of Mr. bin al-Shibhs final
month of freedom and his chaotic arrest - on Sept. 11 of this year, as
it happens - illustrates why it is proving so difficult to eliminate Al
Qaeda.
Pakistani officials say that through
support from local people, elaborate secrecy and Internet communication,
Qaeda members like Mr. bin al-Shibh are trying to re-establish their network.
In some ways they appear to be succeeding. Since Mr. bin al-Shibhs arrest,
no senior Al Qaeda officials have been captured in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials are convinced
that Al Qaedas head of operations, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, remains in Karachi,
hiding in an apartment in this maze of 14 million people, just as Mr. bin
al-Shibh did. Mr. Mohammed, whom American investigators consider responsible
for masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
is one of Americas most sought men.
At some point in August, Mr. bin
al-Shibh and six others suspected of being Qaeda members began arriving
at an apartment building in the middle-class Defense Housing Authority
area of Karachi, Pakistani officials said.
Their new home was two large apartments
on the top floor of an empty four-story apartment building with small shops
on the ground floor. There are thousands of similar apartment buildings
across Karachi.
A Pakistani militant had been instructed
to rent the apartment in his own name two months earlier and wait, officials
said, adding that the Pakistani had not been told who would live there.
Each suspected Qaeda member took
elaborate precautions to avoid detection as he arrived at the apartment,
the officials said. "They came one by one," said one official. "It took
them 15 days to assemble there."
For the next month, Mr. bin al-Shibh
and his associates never left the building, officials said. The Pakistani
man and the wife of one suspected Qaeda member took food and other supplies
there.
Mr. bin al-Shibh and the other men
spent their days using three satellite phones and five laptop computers
to log on to the Internet, the officials said. A compact disc writer, a
set of earphones with a microphone and more than five hundred compact discs
were found in the apartment, along with a television.
The men appeared to have no shortage
of money and weapons. The police found what Pakistani officials called
a large amount of Pakistani currency in the apartment and a small arsenal
of hand grenades, rifles and pistols.
Pakistani officials say they believe
that the group was manufacturing compact discs in the apartment, possibly
for recruiting purposes. They also say they believe that Mr. bin al-Shibh
communicated with other members of Al Qaeda online. American law enforcement
officials who, according to the Pakistanis, seized the money and the equipment
found in the apartment declined to comment.
Pakistani officials say Mr. bin
al-Shibhs arrest disrupted Al Qaedas network in the city but did not eliminate
it. A yearlong crackdown by the countrys ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf,
has failed to stop Pakistani militants from aiding Qaeda members.
"There are a lot of Pakistanis helping
them," said a Pakistani law enforcement official. "Im sure that right now
there would be Pakistanis renting apartments. If they are feeling insecure
they just go to another one."
Karachi has long been a center of
militancy, but it is not the lone site of such support or of anti-American
sentiment. A threatened war with Iraq and American support for Israel are
stoking rising anger at the United States.
In October a coalition of Islamic
religious parties vowing to eradicate corruption, establish Islamic law
and remove American soldiers and law enforcement agents from Pakistan won
a record 20 percent of seats in the lower house of Parliament.
Mr. bin al-Shibhs case shows the
importance of even a modicum of local support. While officials in Washington
attributed his capture to American surveillance of satellite telephone
calls, Pakistani officials insist that a tip from a local source led them
to Mr. bin al-Shibh. They said some people in Karachi had helped hide the
senior Qaeda operative, while others had betrayed him.
The description of Mr. bin al-Shibhs
activities given by Pakistani officials is similar to that of a reporter
for Al Jazeera television who interviewed Mr. bin al-Shibh and Mr. Mohammed
in a Karachi apartment in June.
The Jazeera reporter, Yosri Fouda,
said Mr. bin al-Shibh sat on the floor surrounded by three laptop computers
and five cellphones and spent much of his time quietly "fiddling with his
laptops."
Mr. bin al-Shibh said in the interview
that he and Mohamed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, had used
an elaborate code to remain in contact by e-mail and chat rooms while Mr.
Atta attended flight school in the United States.
One of the final conversations between
the two men, who were roommates in Hamburg in the late 1990s, involved
Mr. Atta pretending that he was a German student in America speaking to
his girlfriend Jenny in Germany in a chat room, Mr. Fouda said.
The chaotic raid that netted Mr.
bin al-Shibh appears to have caught him by surprise, investigators said.
The Pakistani police raided several apartments on the night of Sept. 10
and entered Mr. bin al-Shibhs building about 8 a.m. on Sept. 11.
Ten heavily armed policemen burst
into one of the two adjacent apartments, surprising four groggy Arab men
lying on the floor, according to two witnesses. One of the men hurled a
grenade, wounding three policemen. A second Arab lunged toward a bag and
was shot dead by a policeman. The bag turned out to be full of grenades
and ammunition, according to two witnesses.
As the police subdued the three
remaining men, Mr. bin al-Shibh and other men in the adjacent apartment
fired a rifle and threw hand grenades at the police. One bullet struck
a policeman in the chest.
Shocked by the resistance they were
encountering, the police hustled their three prisoners and four wounded
colleagues downstairs. Using a megaphone, they ordered the remaining men
to surrender. Mr. bin al-Shibh and two other men refused, but they sent
out one Arab mans wife and child.
For the next two hours, the police
fired dozens of bullets and tear gas canisters at the apartment, but Mr.
bin al-Shibh and the two other men did not emerge. Around noon, five policemen
again entered the building. Witnesses said they were muttering prayers
to themselves and feared for their lives.
Mr. bin al-Shibh and two others
made a last stand in a windowless kitchen in the corner of the apartment,
firing a rifle at policemen in the hallway. Officers shouted for them to
surrender, according to two witnesses. They shouted back, "Bastard! Bastard!"
in English. When one of the men ran out of the kitchen, the police shot
him dead.
At some point the rifle the surrounded
men were using jammed. They then hurled kitchen knives, forks and a pan
at the officers. The police finally fired a canister of vomit-inducing
tear gas into the kitchen. Ten seconds later, Mr. bin al-Shibh and another
man walked out coughing, with their hands up.
"By then, we were expecting we would
find Osama bin Laden," said one of the officers involved in the raid. "I
was very annoyed when I did not see Osama."
While the other man quickly got
down on his knees, Mr. bin al-Shibh tried to grab an officers gun and was
tackled, according to witnesses. He struggled furiously as he was bound,
recited verses from the Koran and shouted at the officers: "Youre going
to hell! Youre going to hell!" in Arabic, according to one witness.
Most of the policemen involved in
the arrest have since moved because they fear being killed in retaliation,
Pakistani officials said.
But one officer said he was proud
of the arrest. "They are letting us down, us Muslims down," he said, referring
to Al Qaedas use of violence.
