Smash hit

American and Pakistani intelligence officials say items including a laptop computer, a satellite phone, letters, cassettes of Osama Bin Laden and documents were seized during the raid.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Qadoos’s mother. “They took my diaries and address book, a box of family photographs, tapes of the Koran that I like listening to and a computer we bought last month for the children.”

Qadoos’s daughter Aisha said: “It was our computer. We didn’t even have the internet. It just had some games — Aladdin and The Lion King.”

It certainly seems an unlikely hideout for a terrorist on the FBI’s most wanted list — although, of course, that could make it ideal. Not only is the suburb of Westridge mostly inhabited by army families, but it is less than a mile from the headquarters of Pakistan’s army, which has ruled the country for more than half the time since it became independent. The peaceful streets could not be more different from the teeming bustle of Rawalpindi.

Ahmed Qadoos’s mother is an activist for the ladies’ wing of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Pakistan’s biggest religious party — an allegiance noted by Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the information minister, who announced the arrests.

“There is definitely a pattern here,” Rashid said. “This is the third time Al-Qaeda big fish are being picked up from the house of a Jamaat-e-Islami supporter.”

He pointed out that both Ramzi Binalshibh, the suspected 20th hijacker arrested in Karachi last September, and Abu Zubaydah, arrested last March, were discovered in houses belonging to JI members.

Qazi Hussein Ahmed, leader of the party, which is part of the opposition and is engaged in a campaign for General Pervez Musharraf either to step down as army chief or to renounce the presidency, is furious at the allegation.

“We’re an open organisation,” he said.

“We will give shelter to womenfolk and orphans, but not to anyone violent or to wanted persons.”

Intelligence officers say another pattern that seems to be emerging is the use of doctors’ houses as hideouts. In a war in which 1.5m people were killed and at least as many lost limbs, hundreds of thousands of mujaheddin fighting in Afghanistan were treated by Pakistani doctors and relationships may have developed.

While there is no doubting the huge importance of the capture of Khalid, last week’s raid does leave many unanswered questions.Would he really be travelling with phones, laptop computers, documents and lists of names in an organisation that for the past two years has relied on foot messengers, knowing that phone calls can be intercepted and used to trace their position? The Qadoos family point to the photo of Khalid released by Pakistani authorities, purportedly showing him under arrest in the house, looking fat and dazed in a baggy vest as he stands against a wall of peeling paint. A thorough search of the house shows there is no such wall.

“The family is lying,” insisted the information minister. However, he admitted that it was “perhaps unlikely” that Ahmed Qadoos was mixed up with Al-Qaeda, suggesting the real link was to another family member.