Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan

Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan is an alleged Al-Qaeda operative and computer expert. Arrested in Pakistan on July 13, 2004, files found on his laptop contained details of a terrorist plot to attack U.S. financial buildings and locations in the UK, including Heathrow airport.

Following his arrest, Khan agreed to cooperate with investigators, and continued to communicate with Al-Qaeda as part of a sting operation.

On August 2, 2004, the New York Times published Khan's name citing "Pakistani intelligence sources."

On August 8, 2004, on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that Khan's name had been disclosed to the media "on background," an expression with no fixed meaning in journalism, but which is often understood to mean that the information may not be published, or at least that the source may not be revealed.

The naming of Khan was controversial; critics of the Bush administration regarded it as damaging national security by the deliberate "outing" of an undercover operative for political reasons, in order to bolster claims of terrorist threats in August, 2004, and win support in the upcoming elections. According to Reuters (and as reported in other media),

U.S. officials providing justification for anti-terrorism alerts revealed details about a Pakistani secret agent, and confirmed his name while he was working under cover in a sting operation, Pakistani sources said on Friday. A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested in Lahore secretly last month, had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al Qaeda operatives when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.

Similar charges were to be echoed in the Plame affair, although Plame was not as involved in an active undercover investigation at the time of her exposure.

Following the publication of Khan's name, British authorities arrested 13 members of the British terrorist cell with which Khan had been communicating — the so-called Luton cell — despite not having sufficient evidence to convict. By the evening of August 9, two of the suspects had been released from custody, and the interviews of two others had been called off. An additional five suspects were able to escape entirely before the British raids.

On July 14, 2005, ABC News revealed that Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the suspected perpetrators of the 7 July London bombings, had been in contact with members of the Luton cell that was broken up.

Khan is an alumnus of NED University and Adamjee Science College in Karachi, Pakistan.

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