Mohammed/Muhammed Rahim: Al Qaeda biggie captured!!!

Update: The DoD press release about the capture is here.

Update: It looks like he was captured off the street in Lahore back in August 2007. You gotta wonder where the CIA has been keeping him stashed since then...

Al-Qaeda and Taliban have received another setback when their two important aides were arrested from different places in Pakistan, sources said Wednesday. Muhammad Rahim was arrested few days back from Lahore while Sheikh Ilyas Khel was netted from the general bus-stand in Peshawar, the sources maintained.

According to them, Rahim was Osama bin Laden’s special aide, hailing from Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, while the other had worked for Laden as translator and guide during his stay in Afghanistan. Rahim was chief of Qaeda’s team, which was engaged in negotiations with the Afghan govt-nominated commanders including Hazrat Ali in early 2002.

However, it couldn’t be ascertained whether or not they were extradited by Pakistan either to Bagram or Guantanamo prison. ...

Now he's on his way to Club Gitmo.

The Pentagon says authorities have captured a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001.

Officials declined to say when or where Mohammad Rahim was captured - announcing only that he was handed over by the CIA to the Pentagon earlier this week and is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman says Rahim is a close associate of bin Laden and has ties to al-Qaida organizations throughout the Middle East.

Whitman says Rahim helped prepare the hideout at Tora Bora, a mountain area used by bin Laden as the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Whitman says Rahim assisted al-Qaida's escape from the area during the U.S. operation to try to catch the al-Qaida leader.


-end-