Since 03-23-08
Mar 14, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) ― After secret interrogations, the CIA transferred to U.S. military custody a high-level Al Qaeda figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Mohammad Rahim was detained last summer, CIA Director Michael Hayden said, but
the intelligence official didn't reveal where or by whom. The CIA turned Rahim
over to the military earlier this week in what Hayden said was the first such
transfer from his agency's interrogation program since April 2007.
Rahim is now being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
Hayden said.
"Rahim's detention in the summer of 2007 was a blow to more than one terrorist
network," Hayden told agency employees in a memo obtained by The Associated
Press. "He gave aid to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other anti-coalition
militants."
Since early in the global war on terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks by Al
Qaeda, the CIA has held captured suspects in secret prisons and interrogated
them. Rahim became the 16th so-called "high-value" suspect handed over to the
military by the CIA and held at Guantanamo.
Although U.S. officials refused to say where Rahim was captured, an Aug. 2 story
in Pakistan's The Nation said Rahim was one of two Al Qaeda and Taliban aides
picked up by authorities. Rahim being arrested in Lahore a few days before
publication of the article, the report said.
"Rahim is a tough, seasoned jihadist," Hayden said. "His combat experience,
which dates back to the 1980s, includes plots against U.S. and Afghan targets."
Rahim is a close associate of bin Laden and has ties to Al Qaeda organizations
throughout the Middle East, according to Defense Department spokesman Bryan
Whitman. Officials said Rahim helped arrange the Al Qaeda hideout at Tora Bora
-- a mountain area full of warrens used by bin Laden during the 2001 U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan.
He assisted Al Qaeda's escape from the area during the U.S. operation to try to
catch the Al Qaeda leader, officials said.
"In 2001, as the terrorist haven in Afghanistan was collapsing, Rahim helped
prepare Tora Bora as a hideout," Hayden said. "When Al Qaeda had to flee from
there, Rahim was part of that operation, too."
Officials allege that he sought chemicals for one attack on U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, and tried to recruit individuals with access to American military
facilities there.
"While that record alone would justify Rahim's capture, it does not fully
describe his place in the terrorist infrastructure," Hayden said. "Proficient in
several languages and familiar with the border areas of Afghanistan and
Pakistan, he was also an extremist facilitator and courier with high-level
contacts."
Rahim is perhaps best known in counterterror circles as a personal facilitator
and translator for bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, Hayden said.
Hayden said the most powerful tool against terror suspects "is good intelligence
work, including cultivation of the partnerships overseas that were so critical
to ending the terrorist career of Mohammad Rahim."