More details, from bloomberg.com
11/21 17:08
U.S. Captures Al-Qaeda Gulf Operations Head Al-Nashiri, AP Says
By Todd Zeranski
Washington, Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. said it has captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a senior al-Qaeda operative that was the terrorist network's chief of operations in the Persian Gulf, the Associated Press reported, citing unidentified government officials.
Al-Nashiri is a suspected mastermind of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. He is also suspected of involvement in other attacks, including the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Al-Nashiri is in his mid-30s, born in Saudi Arabia and is a close associate of Osama bin Laden, the news agency said.
The officials told AP that al-Nashiri was captured in an unidentified country and is now in U.S. custody. He is the highest- level al-Qaeda official taken into custody since March, when the U.S. apprehended Abu Zubaydah, bin Laden's operations chief, in Pakistan. Officials also say al-Nashiri was behind the October bombing of a French oil tanker off the Yemeni coast, an attack that killed one sailor, the newspaper said.
Al-Nashiri oversaw the purchase and transport of explosives, the leasing of safe houses and the planning and financing of attacks, the officials said. He also has been tied to failed plots to attack U.S. and U.K. warships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, the news agency said.
U.S. officials in the past week said they had captured a senior operative they wouldn't identify. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said Sunday that the operative was cooperating with interrogators.