"The timing of [Ghailani's] arrest is superb. He was definitely working on something big," said a Pakistani official familiar with his initial interrogation in Pakistan.
As Pakistani officials prepared Sunday night for Ghailani's apparently imminent handover to U.S. authorities, they said they were sure that computer disks found in his possession -- one in his laptop and another loose -- might reveal at least some of al Qaeda's plans and clues about important operatives.
Residents of Gujrat, Pakistan, watch the house where al Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was arrested Friday.
(K.m. Chaudary -- AP)
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_____Correction_____
In some editions of the Post, an Aug. 3 article referred separately to Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan and Abu Talaha as suspected al Qaeda operatives arrested last month in Pakistan. Khan and Talaha are the same person.
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The officials said that two other suspects arrested with Ghailani, earlier thought to be insignificant, had provided information showing that Ghailani was expecting important news from the United States.
Pakistani and U.S. officials are still trying to establish the nationalities of the two suspects.
An al Qaeda operative captured several weeks ago by Pakistani security forces, Abu Talaha, was described as one of the key sources of the documentary information on surveillance in the United States, according to a senior American intelligence official. Talaha remains in Pakistani custody, the official said.
Under procedures agreed to by the U.S. and Pakistani governments, agents from the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency have been allowed to eavesdrop and conduct wiretaps on terrorism suspects in Pakistan, a cabinet minister said on condition of anonymity.
For its part, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence service, has designated special units to collect counterterrorism intelligence through hundreds of newly recruited agents and state-of-the art surveillance equipment provided by the U.S. government.
"There is almost daily exchange of information between the CIA and ISI. The cooperation is even better than the Afghan war days," said the minister.
Pakistani police and intelligence officials said that once a target is tracked down, any raid is always conducted by local law enforcement agencies under the direct supervision of senior ISI officials, many of whom have taken training courses with the FBI and the CIA.
All key al Qaeda suspects arrested in Pakistan have been handed over to U.S. authorities for broader investigation. In each case, Pakistani intelligence officials were called in by their U.S. counterparts for coordinated follow-up.
"There is not a single significant al Qaeda arrest that didn't yield us more," a senior Pakistani intelligence official said of Aruchi.
