Dubai: In an information kept under wraps for over two months, it was disclosed here on December 24 that al-Qaida's operations chief in the Gulf, Abdel Raheem al Nashiri, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following which he was handed over to United States in October.

The UAE and the US had agreed for the benefit of ongoing investigations and the safety of intelligence gathering to delay an announcement on the details of the handover, the official WAM new agency said, quoting an unnamed official source.

Al Nashiri, also known as "the prince of the sea" was one of the most dangerous men on a list of 20 al-Qaida members prepared by the US. He was also one of the main suspects for plotting the attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Mombasa in August 1998, the 'USS Cole' bombing and the attack on French oil tanker Limburg in October 2001.

"Prior to his arrest, al Nashiri was planning to blow up several vital economic targets in the UAE with the purpose of causing a large number of human casualties among the UAE citizens and expatriates and heavy material losses as well as disturbing the peace and security of the country," the source said.

When arrested, al Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni origin, had several identities with forged passports from several countries.

The threat of terrorism requires global co-operation to defeat it and the UAE had taken several measures after the September 11 terrorist attacks on US including the introduction of a law against money laundering, freezing of suspects' bank accounts and probing al-Qaida links, said the WAM report.

PTI