who's bad??? Islamabad...

[dgmodel]

ISLAMABAD (March 3) - Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was questioned for a third day by U.S. and Pakistani agents on Monday, in an interrogation analysts said would seek details of new al-Qaida attacks.

Agents would also seek leads to the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, the analysts said.

Interior Minister Faisel Saleh Hayat again denied media reports that Mohammed, described as the biggest catch in the war on terror, had been spirited out of Pakistan into U.S. custody following his arrest with two other suspects on Saturday.

"He is still in custody of Pakistani authorities and is being interrogated," Hayat told Reuters.

Rashid Qureshi, spokesman for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, said Mohammed was being jointly questioned by Pakistani and U.S. agents. He described as "nonsense" reports that he had been moved out of Pakistan.

"We will announce officially whenever he is handed over," he told Reuters.

Hayat told reporters one of two men arrested with Mohammed was Somali, not Egyptian as an intelligence source had previously identified him. A Pakistani was also arrested in the raid.

Analysts said U.S. and Pakistan agents would work hard to extract information on planned al Qaida attacks which prompted recent security alerts in Europe and the United States, as well as the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader bin Laden.

"The need is to forestall any possible attacks in Europe and the U.S. which were being organised by Mohammed," said author and political analyst Ahmed Rashid, an expert on al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

"There have been alerts recently and these were probably related to attacks in the planning stages by Mohammed," he said. "This is the major business," Rashid said, adding that al Qaeda cells planning such attacks would probably have scattered after learning of Mohammed's arrest.

Security analyst Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier, told Reuters he was sure torture would be one of the methods used by the interrogators. "I would be surprised if they don't," he said.

Qadir said Kuwati-born Mohammed's arrest was likely to lead to more arrests, but not necessarily that of bin Laden.

"I am sure they will interrogate him about where Osama is, but I am sure he does not know," he said.

BIN LADEN LIKELY TO HAVE FLED

Amin Saikal, the head of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, said bin Laden would probably have fled after he learned of Mohammed's arrest.

"This is an opportunity for Osama bin Laden to move on. If the U.S. is certain he is still alive and want to capture him then they should not have announced his."

Analysts have described Mohammed as a pivotal figure in al Qaeda who planned its operations and vetted all recruits.

The United States, under criticism for failing to arrest the top leaders of al Qaeda while focusing on a possible war on Iraq, was elated by news of Mohammed's arrest, describing him as "a key al Qaeda planner and the mastermind of the September 11 attacks."

The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee, Porter Goss, said it would result in "other very successful activities soon" and suggested U.S. operatives were already moving on information seized when Mohammed was arrested.

Some analysts questioned whether Mohammed had actually been arrested on Saturday. They speculated he might have been held for some time and the news made public when it was in the interests of the United States and Pakistan.

The family of the arrested Pakistani man, Ahmed Quddus, said Quddus was the only person seized when 20 to 25 armed security men raided their home in the middle-class Rawalpindi district of Westridge before dawn on Saturday.

Pakistani officials have not named the third man held.

Washington had put a $25 million price on Mohammed, one of 22 people on the FBI's list of "most wanted terrorists."

The September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by hijacked airliners killed about 3,000 people and Mohammed has been associated with virtually ever other major al Qaeda attack.

He was indicted in the United States in 1996 for his alleged role in a plot to blow up 12 U.S. airliners over the Pacific. Intelligence officials in the Philippines say he was part of a cell accused of plotting to kill Pope John Paul there in 1995.

He is also suspected of involvement in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and an attack on a U.S. warship, the USS Cole, in Yemen in 2000.

A Pakistani newspaper has linked him to the kidnapping and murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl. It said investigators believed Mohammed was the man who slit Pearl's throat in front of a video camera after the journalist disappeared in Karachi in January 2002 while investigating a story on Islamic extremists.

03/03/03 07:06 ET

[djxeno]

Big ups to PAKISTAN!!!!!!