Tartan Taliban facing 3 years

A Scot nicknamed the Tartan Taliban faces three years in a bleak Pakistan frontier jail after his arrest over suspected links with Osama bin Laden's terror network.

James McLintock, who converted to Islam while living in England, is accused of travelling without permission in sensitive border areas.

He is the first Briton to be charged in either Pakistan or Afghanistan since the campaign against terrorism was launched after the 11 September outrages.

The 37-year-old father of four, originally from Dundee, was still being questioned last night by Pakistani intelligence services in Rawalpindi.

North West Frontier officials say he is being questioned about possible links to the Taliban and Bin Laden. FBI officers are also interrogating McLintock, who goes under the name Mohammed Yacoub, to find out whether a charity he worked for has links with the Taliban.

The charity, which supports religious schools in rural areas, is backed by some Arab countries and shares elements of the Taliban's beliefs. McLintock, the son of a formeruniversity lecturer and Labour councillor, moved to Karachi two years ago seeking an Islamic upbringing for his children.

There are reports that he fought against the Russians in the Eighties but his family deny this.

He was arrested on Christmas Eve at a checkpoint as he travelled from the Afghan border close to al Qaeda's Tora Bora cave complex and was said to have been held in solitary confinement by US interrogators who refused to allow British diplomats access.

The British embassy in Islamabad says he has now been seen and is well. Pakistani officials say McLintock will be charged under tribal laws. These allow little or no legal representation and any sentence will be served at the notorious Peshawar jail with 1,400 other prisoners.

McLintock's wife Shaffie, 33, whose family lives in Birmingham, maintains her husband was at the Afghan border trying to help people on behalf of his agency.

She said: "He had his passport and visa with him. My husband has been branded a criminal and a terrorist. He is neither: he is a religious man and a good father to out children."

Speaking from their home in Karachi, she added: "An innocent family is worried sick because the British and American authorities have pressured the Pakistani authorities to pick up any suspicious foreigners at the border."

Meanwhile, Abu Zubeida, the man picked by Bin Laden to mastermind future attacks in the West, is believed to have been identified by investigators.

They have named Zubeida, a shadowy figure with more than 40 aliases and matching false documents, as the man entrusted to keep the al Qaeda network going should Bin Laden be killed or captured. He is the group's director of external affairs and has trained most of its surviving terrorists.

Extensive questioning of prisoners captured in Afghanistan has allowed Europe and US intelligence agents to identify Zubeida as the key strategist behind al Qaeda's most notorious attacks.

He is thought to have used one of his many disguises to slip out of Afghanistan weeks ago. One report suggests he escaped through Iran before US and British forces closed in on his remaining hideouts.

An attempt was made under President Clinton to kidnap him in Sudan in March 2000 but he escaped. The US holds him responsible for planning the bombing of its embassies in East Africa which killed 224 people and the attack on the USS Cole which claimed 17 lives.

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