Arrested Syrian May Be Key Al-qaida Suspect

A Syrian man believed to be a key figure in Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in Europe may have been captured by Pakistani security agencies, officials said today.

Authorities were investigating whether one of two arrested al-Qaida suspects was Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, alleged to have had a key role in the Madrid train bombings and to be linked with the July 7 London bombings, a senior government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he was not allowed to comment publicly on the investigation.

The suspects were arrested this week during a raid on a house in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, said three intelligence officials, who also declined to be named because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

One of the intelligence officials, based in Quetta, said the second suspect was a Pakistani from Jaish-i-Mohammed, a Pakistani Islamic militant group allegedly linked to al Qaida.

The official said the arrests were made after a shootout, and that a third suspect, a Saudi named Shaikh Ali Muhammad al-Salim, had been killed in the firing. He said al-Salim had been living with Nasar.

Pakistani government spokesmen and the US embassy said they could not immediately confirm the arrests.

Last year, the US government announced a $5m (£2.8m) reward for information leading to the capture of Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri.

The US justice department's Rewards for Justice website describes Nasar as an al Qaida member and former trainer at terrorist camps in Afghanistan who helped train extremists in using poisons and chemicals. It also says he is likely to be in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Nasar, 47, was born in Syria and also has Spanish nationality. He is alleged to have been a central figure in the March 11 2004 Madrid attacks, which left 191 people dead and more than 1,500 injured. His name has also been linked to the July 7 bombings in London that killed 52 people

In September 2003, he was among 35 people named in an indictment handed down by a Spanish magistrate for terrorist activities connected to al Qaida, and was alleged to have close ties with the suspected leader of the terror group's cell in Spain, a Syrian-born Spaniard named Imad Yarkas.

Pakistan, a key US ally in its "war on terror", says it has arrested more than 700 al Qaida suspects since the September 11 2001 attacks in America, and has handed most of the suspects to the United States.

The last reported arrest of a suspected key al Qaida figure in Pakistan was in May, when Abu Farraj al-Libbi, the alleged mastermind of assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf, was caught after a shootout in a northwestern town. He was later handed over to the United States.