A senior al-Qaeda leader suspected of links to London’s 7/7 terrorist attacks and the Madrid bombings has been captured in Pakistan, officials confirmed today.

Security analysts said the capture of Mustafa Setmarian Nasar dealt a major blow to the terrorist network’s operations in the region. Nasar was wanted as one of the terrorist group’s key operatives who co-ordinated a web of extremist links stretching from Afghanistan to Europe.

The man with a £2.9 million bounty on his head was one of the prime suspects in initial police inquiries into the attacks in London last year that left 56 dead. He was also wanted in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

Earlier this year, the US State Department name him as one of the five most dangerous al-Qaeda terrorists still at large.

An American law enforcement official said Nasar, who has distinctive ginger-hair and also goes by the name Abu Musab al-Suri, was cornered in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta following a firefight which left at least one person dead.

Nasar's capture follows that of al Qaeda’s number 3 leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key planner behind the 9/11 attacks, who was arrested following a raid near Islamabad in March 2003. Pakistan, a main ally in the US war on terror, has so far captured more than 750 al-Qaeda suspects.

Pakistani officials confirmed that Nasar was now out of the country. "He has been interrogated by our American friends," said a Pakistani official. But no information was given on his present wherabouts.

Nasar is understood to have lived in London during the mid-1990s, shuttling back and forth between the UK and Afghanistan where he was involved in bin Laden’s network, said agency reports.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating