Senior Al Qaeda captive escaped US prison

Omar al-Faruq, one of al Qaeda's most senior global operatives, escaped from an American military prison in Afghanistan in July, a US defence official says.

The official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that the Kuwaiti, who was captured in Indonesia in 2002 and turned over to the United States, was among four prisoners who escaped from heavily fortified Bagram Air Base prison in July. He remains at large.

The official did not explain why the United States did not state that Faruq was among the four who escaped until pressed by lawyers at a military trial in Texas this week. At the time of his capture in Indonesia in June 2002, Faruq was al Qaeda's most senior operative in Southeast Asia, according to intelligence officials.

"I think we can confirm that he escaped," said the defence official.

Faruq's disappearance did not come to light until defence attorneys for a US soldier on trial in Texas on charges of abusing detainees in Afghanistan demanded on Tuesday to know where the al Qaeda operative was so that he could testify at the trial.

Faruq was sent to Southeast Asia in 1998 by Osama bin Laden to expand al Qaeda's operations in the region. He linked up with Jemaah Islamiah, a militant group dedicated to creating a Muslim empire in Southeast Asia, and has been implicated in several bomb attacks in Indonesia.

After being taken to the US jail at Bagram and subjected to three months of interrogation techniques that included sleep deprivation and isolation, Faruq told investigators several US embassies in southeast Asia would be attacked on September 11, 2002.

The information prompted the closure of several embassies and the raising of the US security alert level to orange - the second-highest - but the forecast attacks did not materialize.

Faruq also implicated Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who intelligence officials say is the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, in planning bomb attacks in the region. Bashir denies involvement in terrorism.

The escape in Afghanistan was the first one known from the heavily guarded Bagram detention center deep within the sprawling Bagram Air Base, 50km north of the capital Kabul.

Days later, the Taleban guerrilla movement said the four Arab al Qaeda militants had reached a Taleban haven safely.

The Bagram detention center has housed hundreds of suspects since US-led forces overthrew the Taleban in late 2001 for refusing to give up bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the United States. They have included senior al Qaeda suspects arrested in neighboring Pakistan and elsewhere.

- REUTERS