Aide to Bin Laden Surrenders

Confidant of Al Qaeda Leader Turns Himself In Under Saudi Amnesty Offer

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, July 13 -- A Saudi confidant of Osama bin Laden surrendered in Iran and was flown to his home country Tuesday, Saudi officials said. The man, who in 2001 appeared in a videotape with bin Laden, is a potentially valuable asset in the hunt for the fugitive al Qaeda chief.

Khaled Harbi was shown Tuesday on Saudi television being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport. He surrendered under a Saudi government amnesty that promises to spare the lives of radicals who turn themselves in.

"Thank God, thank God. . . . I called the embassy and we were very well received," Harbi told Saudi television in the airport terminal. "I have come obeying God, and obeying the rulers" of the kingdom.

U.S. officials consider Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman Makki, a sounding board for the al Qaeda chief rather than an operational planner for his network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another U.S. official said Harbi was not a senior member of al Qaeda. The official, who declined to be identified, called him "an aging mujaheddin," or holy warrior.

The Interior Ministry did not say what Harbi was wanted for, but a Saudi security official said he was a member of al Qaeda. He is not among the 26 people listed on the kingdom's official list of most wanted terrorism suspects.

Mansour Nogaidan, a Riyadh journalist and former member of the radical underground, said Harbi appeared on a videotape released in November 2001 in which bin Laden described the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

At a dinner shown on the videotape, bin Laden praised the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and credited them with inspiring conversions to Islam.

"We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed, based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors," bin Laden said on the tape.

"I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for."

In a statement, the Interior Ministry said Harbi had contacted the Saudi Embassy in Tehran from the Iranian-Afghan border, where he was stranded.

Nogaidan said Harbi was disabled in both legs while fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s. He then preached at a mosque in Mecca, but left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. officials have said that some detained al Qaeda operatives close to bin Laden, notably Khalid Sheik Mohammed, have provided vital intelligence about the organization. It was not immediately clear how much access U.S. authorities would have to Harbi or to what would say during interrogation by the Saudis.

Wearing traditional white robes and an Arab headdress, Harbi was carried off the plane before being placed in a wheelchair. He was accompanied by his wife, dressed in black, and their son, a Saudi security official said. The Interior Ministry said Harbi would be taken to a hospital for medical care. It did not elaborate on his condition.

Harbi is the third man known to have taken advantage of the month-long amnesty offered by Saudi officials on June 23. One of those who surrendered is Othman Amri, No. 19 on Saudi Arabia's most wanted list.

In his televised remarks, Harbi described the amnesty as a "generous offer" and urged other radicals to take advantage of it.

Separately, Prince Nayef, the interior minister, acknowledged for the first time that Saudi nationals had infiltrated neighboring Iraq to join the insurgency against U.S.-led forces.

"Surely, there are Saudis" among the foreign fighters detained in Iraq, Nayef told reporters late Monday. But he said their numbers and details of how they got to Iraq were not available.

Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtyar Amin, said Monday there were 14 Saudis among 99 foreign fighters now being held by Iraqi forces.