ISLAMABAD, Aug 2 (AFP) - Pakistani authorities said Monday they have arrested an Al-Qaeda-linked computer engineer and discovered significant information on his computer and email.
The disclosure came amid US press reports that the details on the computer outlined fresh plans to attack financial institutions in New York and Washington.
"We've arrested a computer mastermind. He is linked to Al-Qaeda. We got information from computer and email," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP.
Refusing to reveal the expert's nationality, the minister said he was captured either in eastern Lahore city or the nearby town of Gujrat, where a key Al-Qaeda suspect in the 1998 east Africa bombings was seized July 25.
The capture was around the same time as the arrest of Tanzanian-born Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Rashid said, but would not specify the date.
The arrest of Ghailani, which was only announced on July 29, also yielded valuable information, the minister said. Ghailani is wanted for his alleged role in the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"After Ghailani this is the second important arrest in Pakistan," Rashid later told state television.
"We have got valuable information from him," he said.
"We have arrested some more people in addition to these two," he said but did not give the number.
Rashid said Pakistani security agencies hope to penetrate the terrorist network using the information gleaned from the latest detainees.
Senior US officials told the New York Times and Washington Post that the information found in Pakistan late July led to the latest terror alert in the United States.
The Washington Post said documents uncovered in Ghailani's hideout in Gujrat show specific information on the Citigroup Center in Manhattan, the World Bank in Washington and other financial institutions, including parking arrangements and whether guards are armed.
The documents also describe the use of phony couriers and delivery people to get inside the buildings to collect information, intelligence officials told the Post.
The Times said the computer expert, whom it identified as Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, 25, used and managed an Al-Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages.
A senior US intelligence official told the newspaper the information was more detailed than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work.
The contents of the evidence was urgently relayed to Washington Friday afternoon, which immediately increased the importance of other intelligence gathered over the past weeks from Al-Qaeda suspects held in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the Times reported.
US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Sunday raised the terrorist alert level for key financial centers, warning that Al-Qaeda may attack the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange.