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Al Qaeda arrest


PM Archive - Monday, 3 March , 2003  00:00:00

Reporter: Alison Caldwell

MARK COLVIN: "The biggest blow al Qaeda has faced since its foundation in 1988".

That's the way one expert on Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation describes the pre-dawn arrest in Pakistan of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed early yesterday morning. Mohammed is seen as the organiser, planner, and controller of Al Qaeda's international network.

He's believed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of major past, present and future Al Qaeda operations. The author of 'Inside Al Qaeda', Professor Rohan Gunaratna believes that in many respects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is more important and more dangerous than Osama bin Laden himself.

Professor Gunaratna, of Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, spoke to Alison Caldwell on the line from New York.

ROHAN GUNARATNA: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is number three in Al Qaeda. He is the military commander of Al Qaeda. That is, as the head of the military committee of Al Qaeda, he controls all the Al Qaeda operational service worldwide.

ALISON CALDWELL: So what sort of impact will his capture have on the operations of Al Qaeda?

ROHAN GUNARATNA: His capture is a devastating blow to the operational capability of Al Qaeda. That means he was the man who put many of the large-scale Al Qaeda operations together. That means Al Qaeda will find it extremely difficult in the future to mount large scale coordinated simultaneous attacks of the scale of 9-11.

ALISON CALDWELL: What sort of involvement would he have had, or knowledge would he have had, of say, the Bali bombings?

ROHAN GUNARATNA: The money for the bombing in Manila, of the US Embassy and the Israeli Embassy, and the full diplomatic targets in Singapore, which included the Australian High Commission, those operations were partially funded by Al Qaeda.

And because those operations were unsuccessful, part of the money that was given by Al Qaeda through Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, the 21-year-old Canadian operative who withstood South East Asia, that money was used in the Bali, in the planning and the preparation of the Bali bombing.

So you can very clearly say that because Al Qaeda money was used, it is very likely that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was informed of this operation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a highly experienced organiser of terrorist attacks, with intimate knowledge of the Asian region. He's lived in Asia for many years, especially in the Philippines, in Malaysia.

The fact that he operated for such a long time was a real threat to South East Asia and even to Australia, because of his knowledge of the Asia-Pacific region.

ALISON CALDWELL: It's been said that he is actually bigger than Osama bin Laden in terms of a valuable catch. Would that be the case?

ROHAN GUNARATNA: Certainly that information is correct. It is because Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knows the names, the identities of the Al Qaeda operatives and regional heads of Al Qaeda currently planning and preparing terrorist attacks.

So his arrest is much more significant in denting Al Qaeda capability, operational capability, than the arrest of Osama bin Laden.

ALISON CALDWELL: And I guess one of the more significant pieces of information he could provide is telling us whether or not Osama bin Laden is alive, and if so where he is?

ROHAN GUNARATNA: Of course Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will know Osama bin Laden's location, because he has maintained communication with Osama bin Laden until recently. It is very likely he will be able to point the coalition intelligence community at least in the direction where Osama bin Laden is living.

ALISON CALDWELL: US intelligence officials will be wanting to get as much information from him as possible, but he would have been trained in how to resist interrogations, how to resist, avoid giving away any information, wouldn't he?

ROHAN GUNARATNA: Yes, but more than the US interrogators, the Asian and the Middle Eastern interrogators are better trained in interrogating Al Qaeda members, so I believe that he will not be sent to Guantanamo Bay, but it is very likely that he'll be kept in a secret detention centre outside the Middle East, and that he will be interrogated by Asian and Middle Eastern experts, and of course the US interrogators will be present with him during the interrogation.

ALISON CALDWELL: So you think they will be able to get significant information from him?

ROHAN GUNARATNA: Yes. Most Al Qaeda operatives in custody, including Al Qaeda leaders such as Abu Zubaida, the head of external operations of Al Qaeda, Ramzi Binalshib, logistics man for the 9-11 operation; these people have spoken.

Of course it has taken time, it has taken a lot of effort to get these people to talk. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will also speak, but it will take time.

MARK COLVIN: Rohan Gunaratna from Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, the author of 'Inside Al Qaeda'. He was speaking to Alison Caldwell.