American among escapees in Yemen

WASHINGTON — An American with a $5 million bounty on his head was one of the al-Qaida terrorists who tunneled out of a Yemen prison last week, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Jaber Elbaneh, 39, was charged in 2002 for being part of an upstate New York terror cell. Six other American Muslims from Lackawanna were convicted on terrorism charges and are serving 10-year sentences.

Elbaneh, who was arrested by Yemeni police in 2003, once attended an Afghanistan terror training camp run by Osama bin Laden.

The United States, which had offered a $5 million reward for his capture, sought custody of Elbaneh. Yemen has no extradition agreement with the United States.

Elbaneh fled a Yemeni prison with 22 other al-Qaida terrorists and violent criminals Friday, Justice Department and FBI spokesmen said.

Among the escapees was Jamal Al-Badawi, who oversaw al-Qaida's deadly 2000 attack on the destroyer the USS Cole.

FBI and CIA agents are hunting for Elbaneh in Yemen's north, where the fugitive has a wife, one source said.

Hunger strike down to 4 at Guantánamo

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Four detainees remain on hunger strike at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, the fewest since the protest began last summer, the military said Wednesday.

Three are being force-fed with nasal tubes, said Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, a spokesman for the detention center at a U.S. base in eastern Cuba.

Separately, Morocco's government said Wednesday that the United States has handed over three Moroccans held at Guantánamo.

Five other Moroccans — including a suspected former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden — were handed over to Morocco in August 2004 after two years and eight months at Guantánamo.

Informant pointed to London bomber

NEW YORK — A terror informant arrested in 2004 identified one of the London transit-system suicide bombers as a possible threat, according to U.S. officials who said the tip was too vague to foil last year's deadly attack.

The FBI passed on the warning about Mohammed Sidique Khan to British authorities before the July 7 bombings, two U.S. law-enforcement officials based in New York said Tuesday.

The informant, Mohammed Junaid Babar, identified Khan as a potential terrorist, but offered no specific information about a plot targeting the transit system.

Khan and fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer were among four men who later blew up three subways and a double-decker bus, killing 52 commuters and themselves.

Khan, a 30-year-old Briton of Pakistani descent, reportedly had traveled to Pakistan. Babar, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in federal court in Manhattan. In his plea agreement, he described traveling to the Pakistani province of Waziristan to supply cash and military equipment to al-Qaida and providing members of the Pakistani terror cell in London with material for fertilizer bombs.

Sept. 11 cell member released on appeal

HAMBURG, Germany — A Moroccan convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell that included three Sept. 11 hijackers was freed from prison Tuesday after a federal court ruled he shouldn't be jailed with appeals still pending.

Mounir el Motassadeq, 31, was sentenced to seven years in prison in August by a court in Hamburg.

A statement by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court said the lower court had been wrong to order el Motassadeq returned to custody because appeals by both the defense and prosecutors were still pending. No date has been announced for a hearing.

In 2003, he became the first person to be convicted in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. He was found guilty of membership in a terrorist organization that included suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, and of being an accessory to murder.

Another federal court overturned his conviction the following year and ordered a retrial. He again was found guilty and has appealed. El Motassadeq was accused of helping pay tuition and other bills for cell members to allow them to live as students while they plotted the attacks.

The Moroccan acknowledges he was close to the hijackers but insists he knew nothing of their plans.

Defense lawyers criticized the lack of direct testimony from witnesses such as Ramzi Binalshibh, a key Sept. 11 suspect held by the United States. Judges also faulted U.S. authorities' failure to deliver more evidence.

Compiled from The Associated Press, New York Daily News and Reuters