'11 September plotter' held after Karachi shoot-out

Suspected al-Qa'ida members, reportedly including the 11 September plotter Ramzi Binalshibh, are in custody after a four-hour shot-out in Karachi, Pakistan.

They were captured on Wednesday — the anniversary of the attacks in the United States — but news of the captives only emerged today. Pakistani police, however, were refusing to say officially whether Binalshibh, one of the world's most-wanted men, was among those arrested.

Two militants also were killed, but officials have not released their identities.

A senior army officer said he visited the interrogation center where at least some of the captives were being held. He did not say who they were but said that security was intense at the safe house. Visitors were being stripped of their mobile phones or any other means of communication as they entered.

The officer said all those detained Wednesday were still in Pakistan.

Police said after the raid five men had been captured, but President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said in a television interview that 10 people had been taken into custody in the raid.

US officials in Washington said Binalshibh, the former roommate of hijacker Mohammed Atta — believed to be among the main planners of last year's attacks — was captured in the joint operation by Pakistani and US intelligence officers.

However, reporters who witnessed most of the pitched battle in a middle-class residential district on Wednesday saw no foreigners among the Pakistani police and security agents.

Musharraf, who was in the United States to attend the UN General Assembly debate, told CNN that one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis were arrested in connection with the raid.

There was no immediate clarification of the discrepancy. But an Interior Ministry official said there were two raids, one on the 10th and one on the 11th. Information on the outcome of the raids was being closely guarded by Pakistani intelligence, he said.

Binalshibh, 30, was born in Yemen. A correspondent for the Gulf-based Al-Jazeera satellite station claimed to have interviewed him and another top suspect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, in Karachi three months ago. The interviewed was broadcast this week.

"It was a good operation," Musharraf said, giving credit to the Inter Service Intelligence, Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, for uncovering the al-Qaida safe house. "I'm told maybe there is an important person also involved."

Meanwhile, police officials said nine more suspects were rounded up Friday from two separate places in Karachi and may be linked to those captured Wednesday. No further information on them was immediately available.

The raid Wednesday was the latest in a concerted manhunt by Pakistani authorities of al-Qaida members who were driven out of Afghanistan by a US-led military coalition last year which toppled the Taliban regime.

The Interior Ministry said earlier this week more than 400 al-Qaida suspects had been captured on Pakistani territory. Many were turned over to US authorities.

Accounts of Wednesday's raid by Pakistani police indicate that the security agents were unprepared for heavy resistance when they showed up at the apartment building in Karachi's affluent Defense district.

Police officials said a small group of Pakistani intelligence officers and policemen had the building under surveillance from the early hours of Wednesday, but waited until midmorning to begin the operation.

Initially they captured two of the people living in the five-story building, but retreated when the others in the apartment fired on them with rifles and threw hand grenades. It was only then that scores of police reinforcements were summoned, said officers involved in the operation.

The militants battled from the windows of the top floor apartment, then took up positions on the roof to have clearer shots at police in the street. Police snipers on neighboring rooftops pinned down the militants, and called on them to surrender during a lull in gunfire.

Reporters saw only two men brought out of the building, their arms bound behind them and blindfolded with rags that entirely covered their faces. It was not clear how the others were captured or when they were evacuated from the area.

Police said seven Pakistanis were wounded in the battle, including two intelligence agents.

The captives were taken to the fortified headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in central Karachi. Some officials indicated that they were later moved to a well-guarded facility of the Inter Services Intelligence in a military area.