Al-Qaeda In America: Target: America

(4 of 7)

The government of Pakistan held him at an air base for three days before turning him over to the U.S. The CIA ferried him in an unmarked plane to a location the agency will not identify. Aruchi proved a valuable source of information. Before being turned over to the Americans, he told Pakistani investigators that he was sure al-Qaeda was planning to hit the U.S again "soon.''

More important were the leads he provided. Aruchi identified a photograph of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, 25. Pakistani police described Khan as a rising star in al-Qaeda's next generation of fighters, someone equally comfortable in cyberspace and in the mountains of Afghanistan, where he learned to handle small arms at one of bin Laden's training camps in 1998.

According to a Pakistani law-enforcement official, Khan was a gifted techie. He helped bin Laden's network set up incendiary Islamist websites in Pakistan and abroad, sent encrypted messages through the Internet to al-Qaeda cells and helped research other useful information, such as how to use computer models to determine the amount of plastic explosive required to blast through a skyscraper's concrete foundations. Pakistani investigators say Khan used different Internet cafes and relayed coded messages through secure websites that required a numbered password to gain entry. He never used a cell phone and instead made calls to operatives on pay phones.

In early July, according to a Pakistani intelligence official, Khan made plans to leave Pakistan, perhaps aware that investigators were onto him. But he never got the chance. On July 13, he was arrested in Lahore. Under the supervision of Pakistani authorities, Khan sent e-mails to other al-Qaeda members, who were unaware he had been arrested, allowing investigators to pinpoint the coordinates of key operatives. Khan's cover was blown when press reports last week revealed he was in custody. "We would have preferred it if his name had remained undisclosed by the Americans," says a Pakistani official in Karachi who was involved in monitoring Khan.

But Khan delivered tantalizing leads, and last month law-enforcement officials hit pay dirt. On July 24, an armored personnel carrier pulled up near a two-story corner home in the Pakistani town of Gujrat. It had been inhabited by three al-Qaeda members wanted by the U.S. for their roles in the African embassy bombings in 1998, men who had been fingered by Khan. Inside the besieged house--"The whole night there was shooting," said a neighbor--the three al-Qaeda men made futile efforts to burn a cache of computer discs in their possession, but a relentless barrage of gunfire and tear gas pinned them down. When their ammunition ran out 16 hours later, the al-Qaeda operatives surrendered with their wives and five small children, including a 10-day-old baby.