Islamabad: Kuwait-born top al-Qaida operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was on March 4 handed over to the US and flown out of Pakistan to an American detention facility at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, even as a Pakistan Army Major was detained for his alleged links with Osama bin Laden's terror network.

Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that Mohammed, one of the chief suspects in the September 11 attacks in US, had been handed over to the American custody with permission from the Kuwaiti government, four days after his arrest in a joint Pak-US operation.

Sheikh Mohammed has been flown to a US detention facility at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

The Information Minister said Pakistani interrogators had extracted all the intelligence they needed from the suspect, who has been on FBI's most wanted list, and US had recently increased the reward for his capture to $ 25 million.

An unnamed official said that a second al-Qaida suspect arrested along with Sheikh Mohammed was also flown to Bagram air base early on March 4.

In a significant development, Pakistan intelligence officials have detained Major Adil Qudoos, believed to be the uncle of Ahmad Qudoos - the local accomplice arrested along with Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi.

Qudoos was detained at his cantonment residence in Kohat, a town in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, during the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, local daily 'Dawn' quoted officials as saying.

PTI