Osama Bin Laden's Close Aide Arrested in Pakistan

An al-Qaida leader with close ties to Osama bin Laden was arrested Friday, Pakistani counterterrorism police announced.

Amin ul Haq was detained in Pakistan's Punjab province following a yearlong manhunt.

"In a significant breakthrough in the fight against terrorism, CTD [Counter-Terrorism Department], in collaboration with intelligence agencies, successfully apprehended Amin ul Haq, a senior leader of al-Qaida," the counterterrorism police department's spokesperson said in the statement, according to Reuters.

The CTD arrested Haq in a town near Jhelum, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Deputy Inspector General of Police Usman Gondal said at a news conference that the arrest had foiled possible future attacks being planned by Haq.

Haq, whose full name is listed in the U.N. Security Council's sanction list as Amin Muhammad ul Haq Saam Khan, was added in January 2001, for his association with al-Qaida and the Taliban, and for "supporting acts or activities of" bin Laden.

The sanction notes that Haq "coordinated security for [Osama] bin Laden."

Several months later, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., Haq was added to the U.S. Department of the Treasury list of designated global terrorists.

Deputy spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary-General told Newsweek in an email Friday: "All efforts to comply with the U.N. Security Council's sanctions are positive and we encourage such steps by Member States."

Newsweek reached out to the Punjab Police and the U.S. State Department for comment via email on Friday.

A U.N. Security Council document identifies Haq as born in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province in 1960. The U.N. document says he remained in Afghanistan as of August 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country and the U.S. withdrew from Kabul after 20 years.

Javid Ahmad, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Middle East Institute, told Newsweek in an email, "While it was interesting to see his grandiose public return to Afghanistan right after the Taliban's takeover in 2021, possibly in breach of AQ's [al-Qaida] security protocol, he operated silently from Nangarhar and Kunar provinces and played an important liaison role in reorganizing AQ [al-Qaida] forces and forging new tactical partnerships with various groups."

Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. which killed nearly 3,000 people and injured 6,000 others. He was the founding member of the terrorist organization al-Qaida. He was killed during a 2011 U.S. raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Ahmad said Haq was "intimately familiar with the caves where bin Laden hid in eastern Afghanistan."

In the aftermath of al-Qaida's deadly attack on the U.S., Pakistan arrested and turned over several top al-Qaida officials to the U.S.

Marvin Weinbaum, Director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute told Newsweek in a phone interview on Friday, that while the arrest of Haq removes him from his leadership role, "it doesn't put the organization out of business by any means."

He noted that al-Qaida membership is estimated to be in the hundreds, significantly smaller than branches of the Islamic State which are estimated in the thousands. Weinbaum said the group is a "facilitator" and often trains insurgent fighters, including some Pakistan Taliban members, known as the TTP. He cited a U.N. report on the matter for context.

Weinbaum told Newsweek, "al-Qaida has long had a relationship with Pakistan's TTP, this goes back quite a while. But right now, it's becoming particularly important because al-Qaida has rebuilt itself, especially inside Afghanistan." He believes that al-Qaida is operating primarily out of Afghanistan.

Weinbaum said, "The operation that captured Amin-ul-Haq will be described in Pakistan as part of their larger campaign against terrorism and military extremism called Azm-i-Istehkam."

Ahmad said Haq's arrest in Pakistan is "unsurprising" as the country "is also the hub where AQ members, especially those from its AQIS affiliate, leverage technology and virtual spaces like Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook to recruit and fundraise."

Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have escalated since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. In July, Pakistan's defense minister announced that the country would continue to carry out counterterrorism operations across the border in Afghanistan.

"It's correct that we have been carrying out operations in Afghanistan, and we will continue to do so. We won't serve them with cake and pastries. If attacked, we'll attack back," Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told BBC Urdu on July 2.

Updated and Corrected 7/19/24 at 1:36 p.m. ET: This article has been corrected to reflect the accurate terminology of the U.N. document and include comment from Weinbaum and Ahmad.