Pakistani officials deny capture of US-born al-Qaeda spokesman

Mar 8, 2010, 11:16 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistani intelligence officials denied on Monday that a US-born militant arrested in southern city of Karachi one day earlier was an al-Qaeda spokesman wanted in the United States for terrorism, explaining that the two men share the same alias.

Some media reports cited Pakistani authorities as saying on Saturday that the captured al-Qaeda operative Abu Yahya could have been Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a 1-million-dollar US bounty on his head.

'There was confusion because Adam Gadahn has an alias Abu Yahya, but when we investigated further we found out that this Abu Yahya was not Adam Gadhan,' said an intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A second intelligence official said the apprehended suspect was a 'goora' (a white man), apparently an American but 'definitely he is not Adam Gadahn.'

'But he is an al-Qaeda man, though he is not (specifically) wanted by the American government,' he said.

Gadahn is a spokesman for al-Qaeda. A close associate of Osama bin Laden, Gadahn was believed to have been living with the al-Qaeda founder after the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001.

The CIA has offered a reward of 1 million dollars for information leading to the Gadahn's arrest.

Gadahn called on Muslims in a recent video to follow the example of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old US army psychiatrist charged with killing 12 soldiers and a civilian police officer at Fort Hood military base in Texas on November 6.