CIA paid Pakistan for al-Qaeda suspects: Musharraf

London, Sep 25: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in his memoir, In the Line of Fire, claims that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to the US.

The US government has strict rules banning such reward payments to foreign powers involved in the war on terror. In the memoir, being serialised in The Times, Gen Musharraf does not say how much the CIA gave in return for the 369 al-Qaeda figures.

The US Department of Justice said "We didn't know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI's most wanted list, not foreign governments." The latest revelation, said The Times, will embarrass the White House.

The CIA refused to divulge the size of its bounty payments, saying "Our relationship with international leaders is not something we are prepared to talk about." One senior CIA figure added "Nor do we expect these leaders to do so." Among the suspects surrendered to the US was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 operation and many other terror plots in UK, including a foiled attack on the Heathrow airport.

In his book, General Musharraf does not explain why his intelligence chiefs only questioned al-Qaeda's alleged operational mastermind for three days before handing him over to the CIA when he was allegedly responsible for so many attacks inside Pakistan and he alone knew the identities of the key figures in Osama bin Laden's network.

General Musharraf says that in the Heathrow plot in 2002, Mohammed had planned to use flights leaving from European airports belonging to countries like the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Malta because of their lax security. Al-Qaeda had picked European Muslims, including a number of white converts to fly the aircraft into the terminal buildings and fuel dumps at London's main airport.

However, The Times also says the Pakistani intelligence chiefs are concerned that General Musharraf may jeopardise their relationship with the British intelligence agencies after claiming that a convicted terrorist was once an MI6 informer.

In his memoir, General Musharraf, also writes about the role played by Omar Sheikh, in the kidnap and murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, in February 2002. He says that Sheikh, who orchestrated the abduction, was recruited by MI6 while he was studying at the London School of Economics and sent to the Balkans to take part in jihad operations there. He alleges that Sheikh later double-crossed the British intelligence. "At some point he probably became a rogue or double agent," General Musharraf says. British detectives have been denied access to Sheikh, who has been in Karachi jail since February 2002.

The Pak President says he decided to disclose details of the covert operations and his country's capture of 689 suspects since 9/11 to counter claims that Pakistan has not done enough to combat al-Qaeda.

In the book he says that he was so angered at the US attempts to bully Pakistan into supporting the White House that he had his military commanders study "war games" to see if they could take on the American forces should they try to operate inside his borders without permission. He insists that it wasn't intimidation that led him to back the US, but because it was in Pakistan's interest. He scorns what he calls "the ludicrous demands" from Washington after 9/11, including one insisting that he should suppress protests inside Pakistan against the US.

UNI

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