ISLAMABAD, July 30 (AFP) - Pakistan has arrested a senior Al-Qaeda figure wanted by the United States over the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the interior minister told AFP early Friday.
Tanzanian Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, who is on the FBI`s list of most wanted terrorists and has a five million US dollar bounty on his head, was arrested on Sunday along with two South Africans, Faisal Saleh Hayat said.
Hayat described the catch "a phenomenal success in the international fight against terrorism".
The United States accuses Ghailani of involvement in the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, which left more than 200 dead.
"He is on the most wanted list of the FBI and he is the key figure in the twin bombing of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya," Hayat said.
Ghailani was among 14 people arrested in a raid on a house in Gujrat, 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, after a shootout.
"We have also arrested his Uzbek wife and two other South Africans. We are in the process of establishing the identities of the pair and their role in the terror network," Hayat said.
The raid also nabbed their Pakistani facilitators as well as some women and children, he added.
Asked whether the suspect had been handed to US custody, an interior ministry spokesman said: "He is the custody of Pakistani security forces and the interrogation is continuing in Pakistan."
The FBI`s website says Ghailani is aged around 30 and his aliases include "Foopie", "Fupi" and "Ahmed the Tanzanian".
The US State Department said a reward of five million dollars had been offered for information leading directly to Ghailani`s apprehension or conviction.
Pakistan would consider any US request for Ghailani`s extradition but would like to conclude its interrogations first, Hayat said.
However he stressed it was purely a Pakistani security agencies` operation.
"Once our interrogations are complete then as per international procedure, and keeping in view Pakistan`s own national interest, we will certainly consider any US request for his custody," he said.
"So far we have not received any request by the US," he said.
Ghailani was indicted in New York in December 1998 for his alleged involvement in the embassy bombings.
Security officials said Ghailani had quietly moved to the small industrial town of Gujrat some four weeks before his arrest.
He and others surrendered after a fierce gun battle which lasted for nearly eight hours and left a policeman seriously wounded.
"They were forced to surrender because they ran out of their ammunition," a senior security official told AFP.
He said they were tipped off about the presence of "foreign terrorists" when they nabbed the man who used to bring groceries and food to them.
"It is yet another crowning success of Pakistan`s security apparatus in the fight against terrorism," the interior minister said.
Pakistan became a key US ally in the fight against terrorism launched in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, blamed by Washington on Al-Qaeda network chief Osama bin Laden.
Ghailani is the fourth top Al-Qaeda man arrested in Pakistan since the capture of a key bin Laden aide, Abu Zubaydah, who was pinned down in the central city of Faisalabad in March 2002.
Another senior Al-Qaeda member, Ramzi bin al-Shaiba, was arrested in the southern port city of Karachi on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Al-Qaeda number three and chief planner of the September 11 attacks, was arrested in March last year in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad.
Pakistan has arrested more than 500 Al-Qaeda suspects, with the majority of them handed over to US custody.