Pakistan says it has arrested the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in what the United States hailed as a major triumph in the global war on terror.
U.S. officials said on Saturday the arrest of Mohammed, self-proclaimed head of the military committee of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, was the biggest catch yet in U.S. President George W. Bush's war on terror.
"It was the work of Pakistani intelligence agencies... It is a big achievement. He is the kingpin of al Qaeda," Rashid Qureshi, spokesman for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, told Reuters. "He's the senior most al Qaeda guy to be captured yet," said a senior official of the Bush administration, which blamed al Qaeda for the September 11 suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington.