Al Qaeda man slain in Pakistan was Zarqawi "bag man"

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Apr 21 (Reuters) An Arab militant killed by Pakistani security forces was a ''bag man'' who distributed funds to the families of al Qaeda fighters, a senior official said today.

The militant, shot dead in the Bajaur tribal region yesterday, was also involved in organising attacks on US-led coalition and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan, the security official in North West Frontier Province told Reuters.

Identified as Abu Marwan Hadid al-Suri, 38, he was wanted by the United States.

''This is a big achievement as he was an al Qaeda explosives expert,'' Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told reporters in the northwest city of Peshawar.

The security official, who declined to be named, said a notebook was found on al-Suri that contained a ledger listing al Qaeda members and their relatives who were to receive funds. The location of the family members was not given.

''He was giving them money every three months,'' he said.

Among those on the list was al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Suri had married an Afghan woman, as had many foreign al Qaeda fighters in the years following the mujahideen war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Zarqawi was in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, and again in the years before US-led forces ousted the Taliban and al Qaeda from Afghanistan in late 2001.

The Pakistani security official said al-Suri, which means Syrian, was involved in al Qaeda operations in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad and moved to Bajaur in 2005 to organise attacks in the Afghan province of Kunar.

His killing came as Pakistan beefed up security along its Afghan border in Bajaur and some other tribal areas to help a recent US and Afghan offensive against militants in Kunar.

He is believed to have escaped a US airstrike in January that US officials said was targeted at al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri.

Zawahri was not present, but a handful of al Qaeda operatives were killed in the January 13 attack, according to Pakistani officials.

Zawahri is believed to be hiding in the rugged border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most speculation points to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden also being in Pakistan, but probably outside the tribal areas.

REUTERS KD KP2209