A tightening noose
The capture of an al Qaeda mastermind spurs a manhunt for Osama bin Laden and company
Mohammed's capture and other successes reflect a growing understanding in U.S. intelligence of al Qaeda and its loose network. "Some 40 percent of the top leadership is dead or in the pokey," says one official. "That doesn't happen by accident. We're more nimble than we were 15 months ago." Systematic interrogation of a growing number of detainees is slowly providing a wealth of information, which can then be double- and triple-checked with other sources. The prime focus today is on Pakistan. "We're learning about the tribes, tribal leaders, and elders, the cellphone sites and telecom networks, the schools," says Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism analyst at the Congressional Research Service. "We're now mapping the topography of Pakistan."
Short-order cook. That attention to detail helped capture Mohammed, an elusive quarry whom U.S. intelligence had missed nabbing three times before. In his case, American technology paid off, big time. One high-level official tells U.S. News that the National Security Agency used its Echelon surveillance system to monitor more than 10 different cellphone numbers that Mohammed used. The Echelon system links phone numbers and voices and can locate these phones by triangulating with cellphone sites and satellites. "They were tracking him for some time," this source says. "He would shift; they would follow."
His arrest, officials hope, might shake al Qaeda's confidence. For one thing, it is likely to dent the image that Mohammed has crafted for himself as a suave and untouchable mastermind of terror. "For those who bought into the notion that he was some charismatic al Qaeda master of disguise, James Bond bon vivant, they just have to look at the picture of the guy at 3 a.m. Saturday morning," exults one intelligence official. "This makes him look like some short-order cook from north Jersey."
Mohammed's arrest clearly is one of the biggest blows yet to al Qaeda. The network lost its most prolific and hands-on planner. He bragged about shepherding the 9/11 attack, which he called "Holy Tuesday," in an interview with a journalist from the Arab TV network al Jazeera. "The attacks were designed to cause as many deaths as possible," he said. More recently, he has been tied to a synagogue bombing in Tunisia that killed 21 people and an attack on a French tanker off the coast of Yemen. In the Tunisia attack, Mohammed helped plan the attack "right up to the last minute," according to confidential German prosecution documents. Pakistani police are eager to grill him about two terrorist acts last year in Karachi, including the June bombing of the U.S. Consulate.
Mohammed also served as a recruiter for al Qaeda and helped indoctrinate prospective suicide bombers. But perhaps most important, U.S. officials say, he served as the communications linchpin for operatives around the world, meaning that some plotters now could be left out in the cold, fearing imminent capture. "He was the link between a lot of people who didn't know each other and relied on him as a conduit," says one U.S. official.
Mohammed is also America's first captive who was in direct and frequent contact with bin Laden. "I think we could see a breakthrough on bin Laden himself," says one counterterrorism official. "For the first time, they have some real information about where he may be."
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