Blind Sheik's Son Captured by Anti-Taliban

Nov. 29 -- A leading figure in the al Qaeda terror network was captured today by anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, 28, is a recruiter for al Qaeda, but he is also part of Osama bin Laden's inner circle and probably possesses a lot of inside information about the inner workings of the terrorist network. That's one of the reasons American investigators would like to talk to him.

The public learned of the arrest only after his family in Cairo, Egypt, recognized Abdel-Rahman, who also goes by the name Seif Allah — "Sword of Allah" — when footage of his capture broadcast on television.

His father, the infamous blind Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, is said to have inspired the men who carried out the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. He was later convicted of plotting to blow up New York landmarks, bridges and tunnels. He is serving a life sentence in a high-security federal prison in Minnesota.

His son Ahmed lived in Egypt until he and his father were expelled. Ahmed then lived in Sudan and then Yemen until Yemen came under pressure to get rid of him in the late '90s. After that, he moved to Afghanistan and became a fixture in bin Laden's al Qaeda camps as a recruiter of younger members and a symbol of his father's holy war, along with one of his brothers Mohammed.

"As a symbolic matter, it is important that he's been apprehended," said Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow of international security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "And it will cause a setback to the morale of jihad and the people who share these beliefs"

Bin Laden Tape Called for Attacks

Last fall, bin Laden released a videotape on which he and one of the blind sheik's sons called on their supporters to launch attacks on the United States — to shed blood in the fight for the elder Abdel-Rahman's release. Three weeks later, the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen and 17 American sailors were killed.

Ahmed Abdel-Rahman is being held and interrogated by the Northern Alliance, but if he's turned over to American investigators he could end up in a U.S. prison, like his father.