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Ahmed Salim Swedan	Ahmed Salim Swedan	al-Qaeda in Africa	Africa: East	Kenyan	At Large	Big Shot	20030826
		At large as of 2005-05-25
	Ahmed Salim Swedan	al-Qaeda	Africa: Subsaharan	Kenyan	At Large	Mid-level Hard Boy	20040630	Link
		36-year-old Kenyan on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists.
Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan	Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan	al-Qaeda	India-Pakistan	Kenyan		Controller	20020916
		said to have purchased the truck used in the bombing of the United States Embassy in Tanzania in 1998
Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan	Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan	al-Qaeda					20020904

India-Pakistan

Drone strikes force Al Qaeda into the cities

2009-08-10

Al-Qaeda has been forced to regroup its core leadership with some of the key operatives moving out of the tribal regions into urban compounds in Pakistan to escape the American unmanned spy drones which have killed 20 terrorist commanders in the last 18 months. They have moved into urban areas, where aerial surveillance is far more complicated, and have been replaced by a younger generation of militants who now control operations on the ground. Although Osama bin Laden remains the figurehead leader, a 15-member "shura" or supreme council now runs the organisation's affairs, senior Pakistani intelligence sources say. The sources have disclosed that the council is headed by a Saudi national, Mustafa abul al-Yazidi. Other senior members include a Libyan, Abu Yahaya al-Libbi, along with militants from North Africa and Somalia. Al-Yazidi is in overall charge of al-Qaeda operations in the region, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Pakistani intelligence officials told The Times. So it might even be true. The Americans have been aiming their Predator strikes at the so-called "external operations unit", responsible for all operations abroad. The head of this unit used to be Abu Obeida al-Masri, an Egyptian, but he died from disease. He was replaced by Abu Jihad al-Masri Khakaina, who was killed by a Predator strike. He in turn was succeeded by Osama al-Kini, a Kenyan who was also killed by a Predator, along with Ahmed Salim Swedan, in a strike in January. The Pakistani intelligence sources said Mustafa abul al Yazidi, the Saudi, had succeded al-Kini. A senior Pakistani intelligence official said: "Some 60 to 70 per cent of the core al-Qaeda leadership has been eliminated, dealing a serious blow to the network's capacity to launch any major attack on the West." The new leadership comes from Somalia, Libya and other north African countries. They use the most modern means of communication for contact with their sleeper cells abroad. Over the past years there has also been a major influx of new operatives, largely from Somalia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and North Africa.

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Terror Networks

Ten reasons Al Qaeda fears drones.

2009-07-24

Usama bin Laden's son isn't the only Al Qaeda operative believed to have been killed in an attack by an unmanned U.S. drone in the past year. U.S. officials tell FOX News that Saad bin Laden, who is not considered a significant player in Al Qaeda leadership, was "collateral" damage in an airstrike in Pakistan and was not considered important enough to target on his own. Click here for photos of the terrorists. But other high-value operatives, some of them with key roles in Al Qaeda, also have been taken out by U.S. attacks. The following are 10 top operatives killed in the past year: Khalid Habib -- veteran combat leader and operations chief involved with plots to attack the West; deputy to Shaikh Said al-Masri, Al Qaeda's No. 3. Rashid Rauf -- mastermind of the 2006 transatlantic airliner plot. Abu Khabab al-Masri -- Al Qaeda's most seasoned explosives expert and trainer, and the man responsible for its chemical and biological weapons efforts. Abdallah Azzam -- senior aide to Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri. Abu al-Hassan al-Rimi -- led cross-border operations against Coalition forces in Afghanistan. Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri -- senior external operations planner and facilitator. Abu Jihad al-Masri -- senior operational planner and propagandist. Usama al-Kini -- Marriott attack planner and listed on the FBI's terrorist most wanted list. Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan -- involved in the attacks on the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri -- senior trainer and external operations plotter.

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Afghanistan

US strike kills 8 Taliban in South Waziristan - Roggio

2009-04-30

The US launched a covert airstrike against a Taliban safe house in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan. An unmanned Predator strike aircraft fired two Hellfire missiles at a Taliban safehouse in the town of Kanigoram, which is just 15 miles south of the main town of Wana. Eight Taliban fighters were killed in the strike, Geo News reported. No senior Taliban or al Qaeda leaders have been reported killed at this time. The town of Wana is a stronghold of South Waziristan Taliban commander Mullah Nazir, a former rival and now ally of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The US targeted Nazir and Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, in a strike near Wana on Nov. 7. Nazir was wounded in the attack. Yuldashev's status is still unknown, but it is believed he survived the attack. The US is on pace to exceed last year's total of 36 airstrikes in Pakistan. Today's strike is the fifth this month and the sixteenth inside Pakistan this year. Good to see President Obama has not pulled the plug on these operations. The last attack took place on April 19 in the town of Gangi Khel, which is also near the town of Wana. The region is a known Taliban and al Qaeda hotbed. The Pakistani government officially protests the Predator strikes, but behind the scenes the government allows the attacks and the military passes some intelligence to US intelligence to target Taliban leaders. US Predators are based in Pakistan and are operated by the CIA. During 2008, the US strikes inside Pakistan's tribal areas killed five senior al Qaeda leaders. All of the leaders were involved in supporting al Qaeda's external operations directed at the West. In 2009, US strikes have killed two senior, long-time al Qaeda leaders. Osama al Kini and his senior aide, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, were killed in a New Year's Day strike in South Waziristan. Kini was al Qaeda operations chief in Pakistan. Both men were behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others.

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India-Pakistan

Slain Qaeda commander remembered by teammates

2009-01-13

Former football teammates of Al Qaeda's top commander in Pakistan, killed in a suspected US missile strike, on Monday spoke of the man blamed for attacks that claimed hundreds of lives. Pakistani officials have confirmed that Usama Al Kini ('Usama the Kenyan' in Arabic), a Kenyan national, and his deputy Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were killed on January 1 in South Waziristan near the Afghan border. Security officials said that Al Kini was connected to at least six major attacks in Pakistan, including last year's suicide attacks on the Danish embassy and the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, which killed 60 people. But in the Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa, former teammates remembered Al Kini as a reserved man — and a talented footballer. "We played with him in the early 90s to 1996 when he withdrew from public life," said a former teammate in Mombasa. "He was a dedicated religious man and a very good midfielder... Since then, I had not heard of him until I saw his story in the media," his former teammate said. Another former footballer in Mombasa remembered Al Kini as "a reserved boy who did not like mingling a lot with people". He was a...quiet boy. Who liked to blow people up. Al Kini, known in his hometown as Farid Mohammed Msalam, had promising stints as a youth player with Black Panther FC and former league champions Feisal FC. Maybe they'll retire his number? They can't count that high ... Pakistani officials also linked Al Kini to a failed assassination attempt on the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto when she returned to Pakistan in October 2007. The attack killed 139 people. The FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists listing for Al Kini, or Msalam, also listed him as having been indicted over the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people.

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India-Pakistan

New Year's Missile Strike Kills Top Al-Qaeda Operatives

2009-01-09

A New Year's CIA strike in northern Pakistan killed two top al-Qaeda terrorists long sought by the United States, including the man believed to be behind September's deadly suicide bombing at a Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, U.S. counterterrorism officials told The Washingon Post today. Agency officials determined in recent days that among the dead in the Jan. 1 missile strike were a Kenyan national who used the name Usama al-Kini and who was described as al-Qaeda's chief of operations in Pakistan and his lieutenant, identified as Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, the sources said. Both men were associated with a string of suicide attacks in Pakistan in recent months and were also on the FBI's most-wanted list for ties to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. Kini, who had been pursued by U.S. law enforcement agencies on two continents for a decade, was the eighth senior al-Qaeda leader killed in clandestine CIA strikes since July Kini, who had been pursued by U.S. law enforcement agencies on two continents for a decade, was the eighth senior al-Qaeda leader killed in clandestine CIA strikes since July, the officials said. The CIA declined comment on the reported strike, citing the extreme secrecy of its operations on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where al-Qaeda is believed to be based. However, a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed that the two died in a CIA strike on a building that was being used for explosives training. "They died preparing new acts of terror," said the official, who insisted on anonymity because the agency's actions are secret. Details of the attack were sketchy, but counter-terrorism officials privy to classified reports said the pair was killed by a 100-pound hellfire missiles fired by a pilotless drone aircraft operated by the CIA. The strike took place near Karikot in South Waziristan, a province in the rugged autonomous tribal region of northern Pakistan that has long been a haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

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Africa Horn

Kenyan police stepping up searches for Swedan, Nabhan

2006-01-17

Kenyan police have intensified their searches for Al-Qaida members believed to be behind terrorist attacks in Kenya in 1998 and 2004. On Aug. 7, 1998, an al-Qaida bomb exploded at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The attack killed 224 people and injured 5,000. Four years later, on Nov. 29, 2002, 10 Kenyans and three Israelis were killed when an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombassa was attacked and blown up by a car bomb, while a simultaneous rocket attack on an Israeli airliner failed. Al-Qaida reportedly claimed responsibility for the twin attacks. The Daily Nation reported that Kenyan anti-terrorist officials are attempting to locate Mombassans Ahmed Salim Swedan and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. The pair are suspected to have masterminded both the 1998 and 2002 attack. The two are among four al-Qaida members sought by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other two suspects are Kenyans Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. The United States has posted a $4 million reward for information leading to the arrest of any of the quartet. Kenyan anti-terrorism officials maintain that ongoing investigations established that there are currently no active al-Qaida cells in Kenya.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Alert for Central American al-Qaeda was the result of misunderstanding

2005-05-25

An alert by El Salvador and Nicaragua on the possible presence of two al-Qaida terror suspects was a false alarm, U.S. officials said Tuesday. "The Department of Homeland Security has no specific intelligence to support this claim, or previous claims that al-Qaida is active in Central America," said spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. Another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the alert was the result of a mixup that apparently occurred when a representative of the Nicaraguan Interior Ministry attended a recent anti-terrorism seminar during which routine information about the two suspects was given out. The information was then delivered back through the Nicaraguan government and distributed publicly in a press release, the official said. The Nicaraguan press release "erroneously stated that two suspected members of al-Qaida were believed to be in Central America," the official said. Officials in El Salvador and Nicaragua said earlier Tuesday they were on the lookout for a Yemeni man known only as Altuwiti and Ahmed Salim Swedan, a 36-year-old Kenyan on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists. Nicaragua's Interior Ministry, which is in charge of internal security, announced earlier Tuesday that it had alerted all border posts because the two suspected terrorists were "possibly" in Central America. Nicaraguan Deputy Interior Minister Avil Ramirez said his country received the report from El Salvador, the only Latin American country with troops in Iraq and which in the past has received al-Qaida-type threats. El Salvador said it issued a similar alert based on information from "international intelligence organizations, and since Monday, all immigration officials have been alerted and have their photos and their names to avoid that they enter the country."

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Caribbean-Latin America

Nicaragua on Alert for al-Qaida Suspects

2005-05-25

El Salvador and Nicaragua said Tuesday they were on the alert for two al-Qaida terror suspects, but U.S. and Interpol officials downplayed the reports. Officials in El Salvador and Nicaragua said they were on the lookout for a Yemeni man known only as Altuwiti and Ahmed Salim Swedan, a 36-year-old Kenyan on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists. But they said there was no evidence that the suspected al-Qaida figures were within their borders. Salvadoran Immigration Department spokesman Ramon Hernandez said there was no evidence they were even in Central America. U.S. Homeland Security official Marc A. Raimondi said the agency "has no hard information at this time about the whereabouts of these individuals." Angel Miguel Barquero, in charge of Interpol in San Salvador, said no new warnings had been issued recently on the two men. Nicaragua's Interior Ministry, which is in charge of internal security, announced earlier Tuesday that it had alerted all border posts because the two suspected terrorists were "possibly" in Central America. Nicaraguan Deputy Interior Minister Avil Ramirez said his country received the report from El Salvador, the only Latin American nation with troops in Iraq and which in the past has received al-Qaida-type threats.

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Africa: Subsaharan

US suspects al-Qaeda diamond link

2004-06-30

The US is stepping up its anti-terrorist efforts in west Africa amid continuing controversy over alleged links between al-Qaeda and the smuggling of Sierra Leonean diamonds through Liberia. Washington has begun looking more closely at terrorist financing in a region where the US military is increasingly active in efforts to disrupt terrorist networks, according to government officials and a leading Congressman. A US Congressional panel on the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks concluded this month there was "no persuasive evidence" that al-Qaeda funded itself through trafficking in diamonds from African states experiencing civil wars. But a US government official covering west Africa told the FT the US authorities had started to examine more deeply alleged financial links between the regime of Charles Taylor, exiled former president of Liberia, and groups such as Hizbollah and al-Qaeda. "We want to find out the infrastructure," the official said. "Taylor has ties to things other than what’s happening in Liberia. We want to find out who and what." The US military has already launched a programme known as the Pan Sahel initiative to train soldiers in four Muslim-dominated west and central African countries - Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Niger - as part of efforts to prevent terrorists establishing bases there. The US has allocated an extra legal attaché to west Africa and plans to send support staff to help countries pursue terrorist finance investigations, a counter-terrorism official said. Another initiative will involve working with west African banking authorities to disrupt flows of terrorist funds, some of which could come from the sale of gold and diamonds. While east Africa is still the principal focus of US anti-terrorism efforts in the continent, west Africa is next on Washington’s concerns, the official said. "In coastal west Africa, what we see is the opportunity for terrorist groups to take advantage of exploitable resources," the official said. A Federal Bureau of Investigation team this year found "pretty definite" evidence of a link between al-Qaeda operatives and the smuggling of Sierra Leonean diamonds, according to the head of the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees the FBI. In an interview, Frank Wolf, chairman of the House commerce-justice-state and the judiciary appropriations subcommittee, expressed surprise at the September 11 committee’s scepticism about the tie and said he would check that it had access to FBI reports on the issue. Mr Wolf said he asked the FBI team to visit Liberia to investigate concerns about alleged dealings in diamonds by radical Islamic groups groups such as Hizbollah in Lebanon. The investigation established that al-Qaeda operatives visited Liberia to buy diamonds, although Mr Wolf warned that confidentiality laws prevented him from giving details. "I can tell you that, to my satisfaction, there is a connection to al-Qaeda," Mr Wolf said. "Now the question is how much, how extensively, is it still going on?" Global Witness, a UK-based campaigning group, claimed this month that classified briefings given to congressional members by the FBI’s terrorist finance team had confirmed that al-Qaeda operatives visited Liberia and Sierra Leone in order to gain access to the diamond trade. "The FBI should release an unclassified version of their report as soon as possible," said Alex Yearsley, a Global Witness campaigner. The FBI declined to comment on the alleged al-Qaeda visits. The smuggling of "conflict diamonds" from Sierra Leone became a big international issue after the rebel Revolutionary United Front took over the country’s main diamond mining areas during the 1991-2002 civilwar. Proceeds from diamond sales helped fund the RUF, which was notorious for chopping off civilians’ limbs and abducting children to serve as fighters. The US government has never officially confirmed claims that al-Qaeda earned about $20m (?15.5m, £11.1m) from selling west African diamonds, although officials say a connection with Hizbollah is possible. Diplomats in the region insist a link with al-Qaeda has not been proved despite official investigations of claims first reported in the Washington Post in 2001. A US intelligence official said it was easy to point to plausible potential financial links between al-Qaeda and west Africa but much harder to find evidence. The official said that Liberia’s Mr Taylor dealt with a Senegalese intermediary who had also met Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an al-Qaeda operative on the FBI’s list of 22 most-wanted terrorists. "We never found anything specific, although when you start looking at links you can make any sort of assumption," the US intelligence official said. Mr Mohammed and two other senior al-Qaeda operatives on the most-wanted list - Mohammed Atef and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan - are reportedly under investigation internationally over visits to Liberia between 1999 and 2002. Mr Atef is believed to have been killed in Afghanistan during the US invasion in 2001. Aafia Siddiqui, believed to be al-Qaeda’s only senior female leader, is also reported to be under investigation. Liberia’s Mr Taylor, who is prohibited from talking to the media under the terms of his exile in Nigeria, has also denied involvement in diamond smuggling and helping terrorist groups. Some observers have suggested the US is reluctant to admit that it failed to spot links between al-Qaeda and Liberia before the September 11 attacks. Mr Taylor was indicted last year for crimes against humanity by the United Nations-backed Sierra Leone war crimes court. David Crane, the court’s chief prosecutor, has on several occasions publicly alleged links between al-Qaeda and west African conflict diamonds. In an interview, Mr Crane said he believed there was a terrorist presence in the region but declined to go into details. "There are all sorts of things going on that are outside our mandate and we do not pursue," he said.

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Africa: Subsaharan

al-Qaida Bomb Suspects Hid in Liberia

2004-06-01

Al-Qaida suspects in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies took shelter in West Africa in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, converting terror cash into untraceable diamonds, according to findings of a U.N.-backed court obtained by The Associated Press. The allegations came as part of the Sierra Leone war crimes court's investigation of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, alleged have been a middleman between al-Qaida and West Africa's multimillion-dollar diamond trade. "We have in the process of investigating Charles Taylor ... clearly uncovered that he harbored al-Qaida operatives in Monrovia (the Liberian capital) as late as the summer of 2001," said David Crane, the court's lead prosecutor. "The central thread is blood diamonds." Other international investigators told the AP the three suspects are Mohammed Atef of Egypt, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed of Comoros and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan of Kenya. Fazul and Swedan are believed in East Africa; Atef was killed in fighting in Afghanistan. All were on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list in connection with Aug. 7, 1998 car bombings that killed 231 people at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for both attacks. The three took shelter in Liberia in June and July of 2001, according to the international investigation findings obtained by the AP. Crane, a veteran U.S. Defense Department lawyer, said he had no information on whether any funds from alleged al-Qaida diamond dealings were used to carrying out the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. That was likely either zakat or princely largesse... FBI teams have repeatedly traveled to West Africa to investigate allegations of al-Qaida diamond dealings here. No charges are known to have been brought in any court as a result of any of the probes into alleged West Africa-al-Qaida links. U.S. government officials say they have found little or no evidence to support those allegations. The illicit international trade in so-called blood diamonds draws on generally high-quality gems from Sierra Leone. The trade helped fund many of West Africa's wars of the 1990s, and is increasingly under international scrutiny as a suspected means of finance for terror. The United States estimates that between $70 million and $100 million still are smuggled out of Sierra Leone each year, despite the coming of peace and international accords to block illicit trafficking. U.S. and U.N. authorities and international rights groups have long believed Taylor was a top conduit for smuggled West Africa diamonds. Taylor is alleged to have used diamonds acquired in Sierra Leone to bankroll the 1989-1996 insurgency that brought him to power in neighboring Liberia.

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Africa: East

Kenya’s Most Wanted

2003-08-26

A Comoran suspected to be the leader of a terrorist cell in Kenya has been named as Fazul Abdullah Mohamed. He is also known as Harun Fazul or Abdulkarim, and tops the list of the most wanted terrorists in the country. The list has nine Kenyans named yesterday by police as Fahid Mohamed Ally alias Abu Usama al-Kini, Ahmed Salim Swedan alias Abu Yayha al-Kini, Mohamed Karama Salim, Harun Abdisheikh Bamusa and Mohammed Swaleh Saliman. Others are Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Issa Osman Issa, Fumo Mohamed Fumo and Salim Samir Baamer. The above list will also cause your spellchecker to vomit. Reports from the National Security Intelligence Service and the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit indicate that Mohammed was believed to be the new local leader of the Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network. He assumed the leadership of the cell after Wadi el-Hage was arrested and deported to the US for the role he played in the 1998 bomb attack on the US embassy in Nairobi, which left 213 people dead and 5,000 injured. He reportedly rented a house in Runda Estate where the bomb used to attack the embassy was assembled, and left for Afghanistan after overseeing the attack. Intelligence reports indicate the Comoran left Afghanistan sometime in 2001, sneaked back into Kenya the following year and set up base in Lamu under a pseudonym, Abdulkarim. Another graduate of the Afghan School of Mines and RPGs. And to entrench himself in the community, he married Miss Amina Kubwa, 14, a few months before last year’s terror raid on the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa and the abortive missile attack aimed at an Israeli jet at the Moi International Airport, Mombasa. Miss Amina Kubwa, 14: I see he likes older women. He then went underground after the attack and his whereabouts are unknown. Kenyan security agents believe he might be holed up in the country plotting another attack with the help of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is hiding in Mogadishu. Sustained intelligence reports over the past three months has established that there was frequent communication between Nabhan and his associates in Kenya. It was based on this information that five terrorist suspects were recently arrested. One was seized after detectives intercepted e-mail communication between him and Nabhan. They arrested someone? Was this before or after one of their suspects boomed himself and a cop while his buddy slipped out the back door of the police station? It is believed that planning for a new terrorist atrocity in Kenya by the group had reached an advanced stage before the gang was scattered after the Mombasa raid. Police seized an arms cache that included five shoulder-launched missiles, a hand grenade and ammunition for AK-47 assault rifles from a flat in the town’s Tudor Estate. One of the Kenyans being sought by the anti-terrorist police - Fahid Mohamed Ally Msalam - is believed to have bought the cars that were used in the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. He is also believed to have purchased components of the bomb used in Tanzania. Three others - Mohamed Karama Salim, Harun Abdisheikh Bamusa and Mohammed Swaleh Saliman - are suspected to have been involved in the 1998 attack. Issa Osman Issa, Fumo Mohamed Fumo and Salim Samir Baamer are wanted for the Kikambala attack. Investigations indicate that only the terrorist cell led by Wadih El-Hage - currently serving life imprisonment in the US together with Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, Mohammed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali and Khalfan Khamis Mohammed over the embassy bombing -was active in Kenya. I’d look closer if I was you.

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India-Pakistan

How many times are they gonna catch this guy?

2002-09-16

Pakistani officials said they believed that they might have also captured Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan, a Kenyan who is said to have purchased the truck used in the bombing of the United States Embassy in Tanzania in 1998. But American authorities have not confirmed the man's identity. That was in July. They haven't confirmed his idenity yet? The intelligence official said the man Pakistanis suspect is Mr. Swedan was arrested with thousands of dollars and several fake passports and visas in his possession. The raids here are believed to have broken up three to four Qaeda cells operating in Karachi, the official said, as well as three to four cells of Pakistani militants helping to hide them. "It reveals their new pattern, so we will be able to go after more who have used the same pattern," said a Pakistani intelligence official. "They will be forced to change the technique once again, which is a big disadvantage." Howzat? A second Pakistani intelligence official said the arrests confirmed their suspicion that Al Qaeda was operating here in cells of three to five people. The official said Pakistani militants from the groups of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had set up similar cells that worked in tandem with Qaeda cells. Oh, that. We knew that. You heard read it here first... The official warned that there might be additional cells in Karachi. "There might be more out there that we have to now work on," he said. But... But... How can that be? Karachi's such a nice little burg. Nothing ever happens there, does it?... Thanks to Steve for the headzup. I read right over this one first time through...

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