Al Qa'eda third in command 'is running terror cells in the UK'
By Massoud Ansari in Karachi
(Filed: 19/09/2004)
A Libyan hunted by Pakistan because of his senior role in the al Qa'eda terrorist network has taken charge of its sleeper cells in Britain and the United States, Pakistani intelligence officials believe.
Abu Faraj al Libbi, said to have taken over as third in command of al Qa'eda when his mentor, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was captured last year, has sent coded messages to "several" Islamic militants in Britain over the past 10 months, according to Pakistani officials.
 |
|
|
|
Security officers who have interrogated recently captured militants say that Abu Faraj, who is now believed to be al Qa'eda's top operational chief, masterminded and financed assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf, the country's military ruler, last December.
They have now revealed that Abu Faraj, who was once Osama bin Laden's personal assistant, is also in frequent contact with al Qa'eda members and supporters abroad, particularly in Britain and America. They have identified two people - both of whom are in British custody - as recipients of coded messages from Abu Faraj.
The existence of a trove of secret al Qa'eda e-mail messages first emerged in July, when Pakistan announced the arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a communications specialist who visited Britain often and gathered information on possible terror targets around the world. Eight British suspects were arrested and remain in custody, charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Pakistani officials now say that some of the encrypted messages sent to the Britons originated from Abu Faraj.
"The coded messages deciphered recently have revealed to us that he was not only co-ordinating pre-election terrorist acts in the US, but had sent several messages to several militants in the UK in the last eight to 10 months . . . to share notes with them about future terror attacks in the UK," said an investigator who has seen the communications.
At least two of the British-based militants are believed to have travelled to Pakistan from London and met Abu Faraj to finalise details of attacks.
Investigators discovered a passport-size photograph of Abu Faraj among the possessions of another captured militant. Dressed in Western clothes, with a tie, jacket and white shirt, he may have been attempting to create a new identity and passport to enable him to escape Pakistan, if necessary.
Last month Pakistan put him at the top of a list of the country's "most wanted terrorists" and offered a reward of 20 million rupees (£196,000) for his capture.
Abu Faraj, who is 40, has a Pakastani wife and speaks Arabic and Urdu, is thought to be around five feet six inches tall and muscular.He suffers the skin disorder luecoderma, also known as vitiligo, which causes white spots.
He first became closely involved with bin Laden while he was based in Sudan and later arranged forged passports to enable Arab recruits to travel to new training camps in Afghanistan.
For some time he was chief of al-Qaeda's North African operations, but assisted Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - known as KSM - plan the September 11 attacks and was promoted in his place when Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi.
"He was KSM's right-hand man and was personally trusted by bin Laden due to his past role," an official said.
He is now thought to be operating from the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, one of the handful of al Qa'eda operatives who may know the whereabouts of bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"He communicates with his cadres through a Pakistani militant, who receives cell or satellite telephone calls on his behalf, gets his instructions and passes them on," an official said.
"But they are very smart. Every time we arrest any militant linked to them and get access to their numbers, they quickly switch over to a new cell or satellite phone number."
• Three years after September 11, America's Central Intelligence Agency unit dedicated to tracking al Qa'eda is badly understaffed and made up of inexperienced operatives who may spend a mere two months on the job, according to a senior intelligence officer at the agency, writes Julian Coman.
The stinging criticisms made last week by Michael Scheuer, who worked in counter-terrorism for four years in the late-1990s, will deepen controversy over the operation of American intelligence since the World Trade Center attack.
Mr Scheuer is the author of the best-selling book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, which was published - at first anonymously - in July. Since he was uncovered as its author he has been banned by his employer from giving media interviews, but made his latest attacks in a letter to the United States Senate Intelligence Committee.
In the letter Mr Scheuer, who was the head of the CIA's bin Laden unit until 1999, accuses senior managers of failing to ensure the "optimal performance" of the US intelligence community.
He also says that the CIA missed a series of opportunities to tackle the threat from al Qa'eda and prevent the September 11 attacks.
According to Mr Scheuer: "There has been no systematic effort to groom al Qa'eda expertise among Directorate of Operations officers since September 11. Today the unit is greatly understaffed because of a 'hiring freeze' and the rotation of large numbers of officers in and out of the unit every 60 to 90 days."
He lists 10 management and leadership problems at the agency and chronicles a history of failures to deal with al-Qaeda, dating back to the mid-1990s.
The letter accuses senior CIA managers of "a want of moral courage, an overwhelming concern for career advancement, or an abject inability to distinguish right from wrong".
