CAIRO — A man arrested at Cairo airport Wednesday and originally identified as senior al Qaeda chief Saif al-Adel is not the wanted terrorist, the FBI confirmed to FOX News Channel.
Al-Adel’s arrest was reported originally by Egypt’s state news agency, Mena, and the country’s biggest daily, Al Ahram. They quoted an airport official who said the man was detained as he arrived on an Emirates Airlines flight from Pakistan, after a brief stopover in Dubai.
However, the arrested man claims to simply share the same name as al-Adel, whose real name is Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi.
A source at Egypt’s National Security apparatus told AFP the arrested man “is wanted for involvement with the al Jihad [terror group],” adding, “He is not Saif al-Adel.”
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to al-Adel’s arrest over the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.
Al-Adel, who is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, was linked also to the 2002 killing of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and is a former Egyptian special forces officer.
FOXNews.com reported earlier this month that al-Adel, thought to be around 50 years old, recently left Iran where he spent years “under house arrest” with four other members of al Qaeda, following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Iran did not acknowledge their detention.