ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Pakistan announced the arrest of a senior al-Qaida official suspected of plotting assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf.
Qari Saifullah Akhtar, leader of the radical sect known as Harkatul Jihad Islami, was arrested in Dubai Friday and extradited to Pakistan Saturday, the Financial Times reported Monday.
Akhtar was one of the top advisers to Osama bin Laden, but fled Afghanistan after the U.S. attack in 2001, and took refuge first in Saudi Arabia and then the United Arab Emirates, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
His arrest was linked partly to information gleaned from the computer files of Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani computer engineer arrested at the end of July on charges of running an e-mail-based communication system for al-Qaida.
