WASHINGTON (AP) - Osama bin Laden's spokesman and son-in-law has been captured by the United States, officials said Thursday, in what a senior congressman called a "very significant victory" in the ongoing fight against al-Qaida.
Abu Ghaith is expected to be in U.S. federal court in New York on Friday in an initial hearing to face terror charges, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Rep. Peter King, the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, credited the CIA and FBI with catching al-Qaida propagandist Sulaiman Abu Ghaith in Jordan within the last week. He said the capture was confirmed to him by U.S. law enforcement officials.
A Jordanian security official confirmed that Abu Ghaith was handed over last week to U.S. law enforcement officials under both nations' extradition treaty. He declined to disclose other details and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
"Definitely, one by one, we are getting the top echelons of al-Qaida," said King, R-N.Y. "I give the (Obama) administration credit for this: it's steady and it's unrelenting and it's very successful."
Abu Ghaith became an international name in late 2001 when he appeared on pan-Arab satellite television urging Muslims everywhere to fight the United States and warning of more attacks similar to those of Sept. 11. In one video, he was sitting with bin Laden in front of a rock face in Afghanistan. A teacher and mosque preacher in Kuwait, he was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship after 9/11.
He is identified as a major al-Qaida core official by the New America Foundation think tank in Washington. King said Abu Ghaith was involved in the planning in the 9/11 attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Tom Lynch, a research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, described Abu Ghaith as one of a small handful of senior al-Qaida leaders "capable of getting the old band back together and postured for a round of real serious international terror."
"His capture and extradition not only allows the U.S. to hold - and perhaps try - a reputed al-Qaida core survivor, further tarnishing the AQ core brand, but it also points to the dangers for those few remaining al-Qaida core refugees," Lynch said.
It's likely that Abu Ghaith will face a host of terrorism-related charges and possibly murder, which could carry the death penalty, said attorney Michael Rosensaft, who was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan until last fall and is now in private practice. He predicted the trial will last months, if not years, and that some of the evidence against Abu Ghaith will be a challenge for prosecutors to bring to court if it is classified.
Abu Ghaith's trial will make one of the few prosecutions of senior al-Qaida leaders on U.S. soil. Charging foreign terror suspects in American federal courts was a top pledge by President Barack Obama shortly after he took office in 2009 - aimed, in part, to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.