Sept. 11 planners in U.S. custody

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Alleged Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh and four other al Qaeda suspects were handed over to the United States on Monday, the Pakistani government said. Two officials said the five were flown out of Pakistan.\nPolice were investigating whether suspects arrested along with Binalshibh last week were involved in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, another official said on condition of anonymity.\nIf a link were established, it would be the first evidence that al Qaeda may have been involved in Pearl's abduction and killing in January.\nThe arrests of Binalshibh and about a dozen other militants in raids in this teeming port city marked a major success in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. The United States had said it was seeking his extradition from Pakistan.\nBinalshibh and four other militants were handed over to U.S. custody on Monday, government spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi said.\nTwo Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the five militants were put on a flight out of Pakistan, but did not say their destination.\nAlso arrested in the raids last week and now in U.S. custody was Umar al-Gharib, a brother of al Qaeda leader Tawfiq Attash Khallad, a U.S. defense official in Washington said on the condition of anonymity. Khallad is thought to be one of the masterminds of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.\nThough not a leader in al Qaeda, al-Gharib may have valuable information nonetheless, the official said.\nIt was not known if the four militants flown out of Pakistan with Binalshibh included al-Gharib, and it was also unclear whether they were the ones Pakistani police suspected may be linked to Pearl's slaying.\nFour Pakistani militants, including one said to be the group's leader, were convicted in Pearl's abduction, though those thought to have carried out the American's killing have not been charged. Pakistani police have said they think a group of Yemenis -- perhaps linked to al Qaeda -- cut Pearl's throat as he was being held by Pakistani militants.\nPresident Bush said Binalshibh's arrest showed the war on terrorism had not flagged.\n"I had the feeling that after September the 11th, that some around the world would grow weary and tired of this effort," Bush said during a speech in Iowa. "But that's not how America feels. That's not how that fellow who's been picked up in Pakistan feels, too."\nThe FBI says Binalshibh was to have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks but that he was unable to enter the United States to join the hijacking teams.\nInstead, he provided logistical help to the operation and funneled money to his former roommate, Mohammed Atta, believed to have been the leader of the suicide hijackers.\nBinalshibh was a member of the al Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, that U.S. and German investigators believe planned and carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Binalshibh boasted of his role in planning those attacks during an interview in Karachi with the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera. The interview was broadcast last week, but the station said it was filmed in June.