Clock ticking on uncovering al-Qaida plans

WASHINGTON — The CIA wants to get inside Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's head — quickly.

His interrogators — CIA, FBI or from a foreign security service — are working against the clock. Mohammed's information about impending terrorist operations and the location of al-Qaida leaders and cells grows more dated by the hour.

Whether the CIA can learn anything useful from the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind depends on the skills and methods of the interrogators, Mohammed's willingness to talk and perhaps simply time.

Captured early Saturday in a raid in Pakistan, he is now believed to be in U.S. custody overseas.

Of top priority during the questioning is gaining intelligence that could quickly help disrupt attacks being planned or lead to added precautions, U.S. counterterrorism officials said.

That could mean a domestic law-enforcement raid to break up a cell ready to strike, or an increase in security at areas Mohammed names as targets subject to imminent attacks. Intelligence about Mohammed's activities led, in part, to last month's orange alert, the nation's second-highest, counterterrorism officials said.

Overseas, it could mean an operation that leads to the capture of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The FBI will immediately analyze everything found in Mohammed's living quarters for leads on other al-Qaida operatives or clues to planned attacks on U.S. interests.

U.S. forensic experts had made limited progress yesterday in deciphering the jumble of data contained in the documents and computers. They reported that the data appeared to include "operational detail, names ... including al-Qaida operatives around the world, including here" in the United States, one federal law-enforcement official said.

"It could be the mother lode of information that leads to the inner workings of al-Qaida," the law-enforcement official said. "How they work, where they work, who they are, what their financial structure is."

"Computers, pocket litter, names, phone numbers — it's all perishable information. You've got to move quickly to get that stuff," said another source with experience in counterterrorism. "If there is a U.S. phone number, you've got to get on that quickly. There could be all kinds of records. If they get his black book, they'll be busy. There is just a ton of work to be done."

But such information is just what he is most likely to try to keep secret, or lie about. Still, terrorists who learn of Mohammed's capture may alter their plans, abandon safe houses or make hurried telephone calls — actions that could expose them to detection.

"I'm sure his closest lieutenants are on the move," said Magnus Ranstorp, an internationally known terrorism expert at St. Andrews University in Scotland. "They will spend more time worrying about their security than planning a spectacular attack."

The only al-Qaida capture that approaches the magnitude of Mohammed's was that last March of Abu Zubaydah, the group's terrorism coordinator. Zubaydah more than once provided information that sent U.S. security officials scurrying to provide warnings to cities and sectors of the economy, knowing all the while that he could be lying.

Zubaydah did provide some information that later was verified through other sources, officials said. That included intelligence that led to the detention of Jose Padilla, the American whom federal officials allege was plotting to use a radiological weapon on U.S. soil.

U.S. officials were elated by Mohammed's capture.

"This is equal to the liberation of Paris in the second World War," said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Florida, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on ABC's "This Week."

Officials were not releasing details of Mohammed's detention. Previous high-level al-Qaida captives have not been brought to U.S. soil; they would have rights not afforded on foreign soil, U.S. officials say. Where they are, however, has not been disclosed.

Another secret is how officials will attempt to get information from Mohammed.

U.S. officials insist they eschew physical, violent torture, although it is unclear if all of the United States' allies live by a similar code.

Also less clear are to what extent interrogators use certain methods that human-rights groups also regard as torture: sleep deprivation, threats of torture and other techniques to confuse, frighten or wear down a captive.

"We don't sanction torture but there are psychological and other ways that we can get most of what we need," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Whatever the method, the goal is to get inside a prisoner's head and get him talking, experts say. An interrogator may try to appeal to Mohammed's vanity, his fears, or whatever lever seems to offer the best avenue to getting data that will stop terrorist attacks.

U.S. officials say Mohammed, 37, who was born in Kuwait and has both Pakistani citizenship and ancestry, planned and coordinated key aspects of the Sept. 11, 2001, operation. Authorities also have linked him to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, a failed plot two years later to blow up 11 U.S. airliners, and, since Sept. 11, the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia that killed 21 people. Another prisoner has accused Mohammed of killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year.

His information can be cross-checked with Ramzi Binalshibh's, his former aide who was captured in September. Binalshibh was a part of the cell that included Mohamed Atta, chief among the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Even as they savored the long-sought arrest of one of the world's most dangerous men, U.S. law-enforcement officials intensified their scrutiny of suspected al-Qaida sympathizers who could try to expedite their terror plans, fearing they would be exposed soon as a result of Mohammed's arrest. They said they also are concerned the arrest could spur more al-Qaida violence.

FBI counterterrorism agents in this country are "working harder than ever if that's possible," said a senior FBI counterterrorism official. Nabbing Mohammed, he said, is bound to have a huge impact on others in the organization.

"It could go both ways — it could send them to ground or it could activate a retaliatory strike," he said.

Information from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.