Bill al-Shaiba surrendered without a struggle: Report

Washington (Agencies): Ramzi bin al-Shaiba, the alleged coordinator of the Sept. 11 attacks, found alone and asleep last week in an apartment in Karachi, Pakistan, was arrested without a struggle, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Quoting senior Pakistani intelligence officers the daily said that bin al-Shaiba, one of the world's most hunted men, was arrested hours before a shootout with other alleged al-Qaeda suspects at another location in the city.

Pakistani officials said bin al-Shaiba, 30, was captured in the first of three raids conducted on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that led to the arrest of eight suspected al-Qaeda fugitives and the death of two others.

"Ramzi was arrested in one of the three raids conducted in quick succession, but he was not netted in the raid that involved the gun battle," a senior Pakistani intelligence official told the Post, adding that bin al-Shaiba was "conclusively" identified by U.S. officials once the crackdown was complete.

"This was the most coordinated strike against al-Qaeda sleeper cells in Pakistan since September 11,"a Pakistani intelligence official told the Post.

The newspaper reported that bin al-Shaiba and the other suspects were taken to a secret military facility near Karachi's airport and would be flown in U.S. custody to an undisclosed location late Sunday.

However, an Islamist website sympathetic to Osama bin Laden denied on Sunday that Pakistan had captured bin al-Shaibha.

The Jehad Online website (www.jehad.net) said reports of bin al-Shaiba's arrest were part of a U.S. and Pakistani media campaign to demoralize supporters of bin Laden.

A senior intelligence official in Karachi said authorities believed two of the detained men participated in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, on the basis of statements and evidence gathered from key suspects in the case.

Separately, U.S. officials said on Saturday they had disrupted a "terrorist cell" on American soil, arresting five U.S. citizens who attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson said the defendants, U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent, received training in the use of assault rifles, handguns and other weapons while attending the camp in June 2001.

The charges of providing, attempting to provide and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

While the defendants were at the camp, bin Laden himself delivered a speech instructing the approximately 200 trainees in anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment, Thompson said.

Those arrested and charged were Faysal Galab, 26; Sahim Alwan, 29; Yahya Goba, 25; Shafal Mosed, 24; and Yasein Taher, 24, all residents of Lackawanna, a suburb of Buffalo.

In Hamburg, Germany, the investigation into the Hamburg suicide hijackers after the Sept. II attacks kept returning to one man: Ramzi bin al-Shaiba.