Claim that al Qaeda deputy visited NZ to recruit

3.00pm

Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited New Zealand and Australia in 1996 to recruit militants, his biographer was quoted as telling an Australian newspaper today.

Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir makes the claim in a yet-to-be televised interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television, parts of which were disclosed in reports today.

"In those days, in early 1996, he was on a mission to organise his network all over the world," Mir said.

Mir said al-Zawahiri told him he travelled to New Zealand to "meet some of his people", then went on to Australia and Indonesia.

The Weekend Australian said Mir claimed al-Zawahiri, a 52-year-old bespectacled Egyptian surgeon, had visited New Zealand twice.

New Zealand police counter-terrorism boss Assistant Commissioner Jon White told NZPA today systems had been checked since Mir's claim.

"We have no verification that al-Zawahiri visited this country under that name, or any of the other names he uses.

"But naturally, we are interested to know if there are any more details available from the writer (Mir)."

Mr White understood Mir was about to publish a biography of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden early next week, in which his claims were included.

"We'll be looking at that."

Mr White was confident the New Zealand checks had been carried out properly, but admitted it was possible al-Zawahiri had entered under a new name.

"If we were given a name to check, that could certainly be done in very short order," he said.

Mir told The Weekend Australian that al-Zawahiri travelled around the world at the time as a businessman on a false passport, "often using Christian names".

"He told me he stopped for a while in Darwin (in northern Australia), he was ... looking for help and collecting funds," the newspaper reported.

But Mr White said no details had been verified.

"It's difficult to speculate, but it's not an unknown thing for a network such as al Qaeda to look to other countries to either raise funds or recruit people."

New Zealand authorities would work with Australian colleagues on the matter, he said.

Australia's attorney-general, Philip Ruddock, said the government could not rule out the possibility that al-Zawahiri visited Australia in the 1990s, but not under his own name.

Mir's claim comes as Pakistani officials said yesterday they might have cornered al-Zawahiri in a remote area near the Afghan border after two days of intense fighting.

The interview with Mir is to be televised in Australia on Monday.

Mir was the first journalist to interview bin Laden after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

Al-Zawahiri was believed to be the operational commander of al Qaeda and a key planner of September 11 and the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200.

In May last year, al-Zawahiri had ordered Muslims to attack Australians and Australian interests, exhorting them to "turn the earth under their feet into fire", the newspaper said.

Until he became a major terror suspect, al-Zawahiri travelled frequently around the world using false passports and at least 10 known aliases.

Mir said Australia had become a target of al Qaeda because of its role as a staunch ally of the United States-led war against terror.

- NZPA