Friday, July 30, 2004

The Expected Arrest?



As an earlier post of mine mentioned the Pakistanis were supposed to capture someone important in Al Qaeida, preferably during the first three days of the Democratic Convention. Well, though yesterday was the last day of the Convention, we did indeed get some good news from Pakistan:

A top al Qaeda operative, one of the world's most wanted men with a $25 million price on his head, was in custody in Pakistan on Friday for his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was arrested along with 13 others after a 14-hour gunbattle with security forces at the weekend in the city of Gujarat, about 110 miles southeast of Islamabad, Pakistan Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said.
"It is a big achievement for our security forces," he said.
The United States had offered a reward of $25 million for the capture of the Tanzanian national, the same bounty offered for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 19 others on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List.
Ghailani is probably the most senior al Qaeda operative caught in Pakistan since the arrest in March 2003 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
"He is wanted for the death of Americans," said an official in Washington on condition of anonymity.


Of course it's good news if a real terrorist has been captured. Nothing wrong with that. But I would have wanted the date of the arrest not to fall so close to the predicted time slot. Poor me. I have gone all cynical and sour. And it isn't even my fault.