AP Sources: U.S. Man Was 'Gold Mine' of Terror Intel - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

AP Sources: U.S. Man Was 'Gold Mine' of Terror Intel - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com: "When the American-born Al Qaeda recruit Bryant Neal Vinas was captured in Pakistan late last year, he wasn't whisked off to a military prison or a secret CIA facility in another country to be interrogated.

Instead, the itinerant terrorist landed in the hands of the FBI and was flown back to New York to face justice.

Months before President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to change U.S. counterterrorism policies, the Bush administration gave Vinas all the rights of American criminal suspects.

And he talked."

'"This was by the numbers. It was a law enforcement operation and it worked," said a senior law enforcement official, one of several authorities who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

The official said Vinas provided "an intelligence gold mine" to U.S. officials, including possible information about a suspected militant who was killed in a Predator drone strike last November.'