Al-Qaida: Dead or captured

--March 1, 2003

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, chief of operations for al-Qaida and mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks, is captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He is the target of the raid, but is not the only one arrested. Later, the United States realizes that the other man is Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawasi, financial chief of al-Qaida and the money man for Sept. 11 attacks. It is the biggest capture since the start of the war on terrorism.

--March 15, 2003

Yasir al Jaziri, a Morrocan citizen described as a key aide to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, is arrested in the posh Lahore district of Gulberg by U.S. and Pakistani intelligence.  Al Jaziri’s responsibilities include managing al-Qaida’s legitimate business activities.   U.S.-educated, he is described as a “computer whiz.”  His two laptop computers and a number of CD-ROMs are seized in the raid. 

--April 29, 2003 [News breaks May 1]

Tawfiq Attash Khallad, director of South Asian operations for al-Qaida and mastermind of the USS Cole attack, is captured in Karachi.  Information developed during the interrogation of Khailid Sheikh Mohammed two months earlier is believed to have played a role in Khallad's capture. Also netted in the raids is a nephew of Sheikh Mohammed.

--May 28, 2003

Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, top al-Qaida operative in Saudi Arabia, is captured in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Al-Ghamdi, believed to be the mastermind of the May 12 attacks in Riyadh, had been sought both before and after the attacks. 

--June 2003

Khaled Jehani, reputed to be key al-Qaida operative in Saudi Arabia, having taken over command of the Saudi cell after the Saudis captured or killed his superiors in the wake of the Riyadh attacks.  Identified by some as mastermind of Riyadh bombings.  Left Saudi Arabia at age 18, fought in Bosnia and Chechnya.  Returned to Saudi Arabia via Yemen, following 9/11 attacks.  Veteran of both the Afghan terror camps and battles against Soviet and U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Appears in an al-Qaida martyrdom tape retrieved by U.S. during Afghan war kissing his gun. 

--Aug. 12, 2003 [News breaks Aug. 15]

Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali, director of al-Qaida operations in South East Asia and mastermind of the Bali bombings as well as the week-old Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, is captured in Malaysia. The first major capture of an al-Qaida leader in Southeast Asia, it is announced by President Bush at a military base. 

--Sept. 23, 2003

In what senior U.S. intelligence officials describe as "a major development" in the war on terror, Saudi officials kill a "rising star" in al-Qaida, one recently sought by the FBI as someone who may have been plotting attacks against the United States.  Zubayr al-Rimi, 29, is killed in a Saudi raid on a safe house in Jizan, in the south of the kingdom. The FBI issued a bulletin seeking information on al Rimi and three others on Sept. 5.  At the time, the FBI issued the bulletin, it said it had done so out of fear the men might have been plotting an operation in the United States. Al Rimi was listed first in the bulletin.

--Oct. 2, 2003

Ahmed Said Khadr, an al-Qaida financier, had dealings with senior al-Qaida leaders while running a charity, Human Concern.  The charity was financed in part by the Canadian International Development Agency.  CIDA gave $325,000 to Human Concern between 1980 and 1997.  Khadr had contact with Bin Laden from at least 1988.  Canadian intelligence agents claim that in 1995 he funneled money through Human Concern to finance the al-Qaida bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan that was orchestrated by Al Zawahiri.  Seventeen died.  Only after the blast did CIDA cut out its grant sot Human Concern.  Ahmed Khadr was arrested in Pakistan in 1995 but was released in 1996 following what Canada’s National Post described as “an extraordinary intervention” by Prime Minister Jean Chretien during a state visit to Islamabad.  Two of his sons fought against the U.S. in Afghanistan and were captured.

--Oct. 2, 2003

Abu Mohammed, “emir” of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, is killed in a Pakistani-led raid on an Al-Qaida camp in south Waziristan in northeastern Pakistan.  The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement is an organization that includes components in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and the Xinjiang Province of China. The ETIM's aim is the establishment of a fundamentalist Muslim state to be called "East Turkistan." To that end, from 1990 to 2001 elements of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement have reportedly committed over 200 acts of terrorism, resulting in at least 162 deaths and over 440 injuries. ETIM has a close financial relationship with al-Qaida and many of its members' received terrorist training in Afghanistan, financed by al-Qaida and the Taliban.

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