Pakistani authorities said they had arrested a leading al Qaeda member, Moroccan national Yasir al-Jaziri, in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday. An intelligence source said the capture was made thanks to information received from another senior al Qaeda figure, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was arrested in the northern city of Rawalpindi two weeks ago and is now in U.S. custody.

Mohammed is often portrayed as number three in al Qaeda, behind Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri, and is suspected of being a leading figure behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"He (al-Jaziri) is less important than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed but he is quite an important person," Secretary of the Interior Ministry Tasneem Noorani told Reuters.

Noorani said al-Jaziri had been picked up in the smart Gulberg suburb of Lahore on Saturday evening.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said al-Jaziri was perhaps one level down from Mohammed in the organization.

An intelligence source said a third man, a Pakistani who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was also arrested in a second raid in the Gulberg area later on Saturday night.

Computer Whiz

Al-Jaziri is thought to be involved in al Qaeda's business operations, and the intelligence source described him as a U.S.-educated "computer whiz."

Intelligence sources said local experts were still trying to crack the security codes on two laptops and some CDs, which were found at the one-room apartment.

Another source said travelers' checks and maps of "various installations" around the country had also been seized.

There have been a series of bomb attacks, mainly on Western and Christian targets in Pakistan since September 11, 2001, and al Qaeda has been linked to several of those attacks.

PHOTO CAPTION

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top Osama bin Laden aide arrested last week, has given information helping investigators close in on the al Qaeda leader, Pakistan's intelligence agency said March 10, 2003. (Mian Khursheed/Reuters) - Mar 10 12:19