9/11 'mastermind' arrested

Al-Qa'ida leader is held in Pakistan, Saddam destroys missile, Turkish MPs deal blow to US war planning

The alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks and the head of al-Qa'ida military planning was captured in Pakistan yesterday.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti alleged to have dreamed up the idea of flying planes into the World Trade Centre towers, and one of the biggest names wanted by the FBI, was one of three people detained in a raid on a house near Islamabad yesterday, Pakistani authorities announced.

"We have finally apprehended Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," presidential spokes- man Rashid Qureshi said last night. "It was the work of Pakistani intelligence agencies ... It is a big achievement. He is the kingpin of al-Qa'ida."

Mohammed, known previously as the head of Osama bin Laden's military command, has variously been blamed for a role in the first attack on the World Trade Centre in 1993, for a foiled plot in 1995 in the Philippines to bomb US airliners over the Pacific and for having a role in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television last year, Mohammed described himself as the man behind the 11 September attacks and said an original plan was to fly planes into nuclear power plants.

American officials have claimed previously that he gave the final go-ahead to Mohammed Atta, the hijackers' ringleader, to strike and that he had more to do with the attacks than Bin Laden.

Mohammed was almost captured last year in a raid in Karachi in which the alleged hijacker Ramzi Binalshibh was arrested. US intelligence has been chasing Mohammed since before 1995, when he was tracked to a flat in Qatar but again managed to escape before a raid.

But if yesterday's arrest was a triumph for George Bush, it came as the Turkish parliament severely hampered his Iraq war plans after it failed to approve the deployment of 62,000 US troops within its borders.

After the parliament narrowly voted to authorise the stationing of the troops – a key requirement in Washington's plans to open up a significant northern invasion front – it was informed by the speaker that the vote was not valid because the margin of approval was smaller than the number of abstentions.

The vote, a balancing act between realpolitik and public sentiment, as expressed by tens of thousands of anti-war protesters outside the parliament building, had 264 deputies in favour of deployment and 251 against, with 19 abstentions. It was not immediately clear what would happen next to break the deadlock.

Meanwhile, Iraq started destroying its al-Samoud 2 missile arsenal yesterday under the gaze of UN weapons inspectors in a move that seemed sure to deepen international divisions over the prospect of war and set rival factions within the UN Security Council back at each other's throats.

UN inspectors confirmed at least one al-Samoud missile had been destroyed and a timetable agreed for turning the rest to scrap in a matter of weeks. But the White House, echoed in Britain by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, immediately dismissed the move as the latest ploy in Saddam's endless "game of deception".

But it seemed certain to be seized on by France and other anti-war nations as proof that the UN inspection regime is working. Iraqi officials stressed they had mixed feelings about their decision, since the missiles were among the few weapons they could use in trying to fend off a US invasion. In Southport, Mr Straw told a Labour Party conference: "Saddam has tricked and fooled the international community before, and we are seeing the same pattern again."