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British Al-Qaeda Suspect Held On Pakistan Border
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| Britons
protesting Afghan war
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PAKISTAN,
Dec. 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Pakistani officials working
alongside Western security services to track down members of Al-Qaeda confirmed
they were holding a Briton suspected of having links with the network, news
agencies reported Monday.
The
man, named James Alexander McLintock, was detained 11 days ago while he was
crossing a "no-entry" border into Pakistan's remote North-West
Frontier province from Afghanistan, the British daily newspaper, The Independent
reported.
Intelligence
officers have already identified the area in Afghanistan, north of Jalalabad, as
a former Al-Qaeda stronghold used by Osama bin Laden's organization as a
training site.
The
arrest of McLintock, a white man believed to be of Scottish origin, raised new
western fears about widespread recruitment of Britons along with Americans,
Australians and other Europeans to Al-Qaeda.
More
than 200 suspected Al-Qaeda members are being held on the Pakistani border after
fleeing the American onslaught on the Tora Bora cave complex two weeks ago, the
daily said.
The
Briton was said to have given a Muslim name, Yaqoob, to border guards and spoken
in Arabic when he was arrested. He was holding a British passport confirmed by
the Pakistani authorities as authentic.
He
claimed he was working for an international aid agency before being arrested and
taken to the north Pakistani city of Peshawar for questioning.
"We
are still trying to ascertain why he was in a no-entry zone," a spokesman
for the police in North-West Frontier province said. "Anyone found in this
area will be questioned closely. Until we know why this man was there, we cannot
rule out a link with the other Al-Qaeda suspects."
The
arrest of the Briton is part of a crackdown by Pakistani armed forces as Western
intelligence agencies, including the FBI and MI5, seek to identify recruits to
Bin Laden's cause, said The Independent.
Pakistani
intelligence officers are already working with a six-strong team of FBI agents,
who are questioning 139 men suspected of being hardcore Al-Qaeda members in
Kohat, 40 miles south of Peshawar.
The
American officers are flown to Kohat every night by military plane from
Islamabad to conduct their questioning. The police spokesman declined to say
whether they were also operating in Peshawar, where McLintock was being held.
In
London, the British Foreign Office said diplomats in Islamabad were urgently
seeking information about McLintock, but could not confirm the details of his
arrest. A spokesman would only say: "He has not been visited by consular
officials."
Scotland
Yard declined to comment on whether anti-terrorist officers had searched
McLintock's British home. MI5 was also understood to be investigating the case.
The
security service has been investigating the possibility that up to 37 British
Muslims were trained at Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan after documents detailing
foreign recruits were recovered from the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
Al-Muhajiroun,
the British-based Muslim group that has denied accusations of sending Britons to
Afghanistan, said it had no connection with McLintock. A spokesman said:
"None of his names are familiar to us."
Unconfirmed
reports from Kabul have suggested several dozen Britons may have trained at Al-Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
One of them may even have been Richard Reid, who
allegedly tried to ignite explosives on his shoes during a U.S.-bound flight
from Paris on December 22.
According
to reports citing intelligence sources, investigators are trying to establish
whether he trained in Afghanistan.
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