Posted on 05/07/2005 5:33:01 PM PDT by Gondring
THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.
Al-Libbi’s arrest in Pakistan, announced last Wednesday, was described in the United States as “a major breakthrough” in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al- Qaeda network”. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was “a very important figure”. Yet the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI’s most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department “rewards for justice” programme.
Another Libyan is on the FBI list — Anas al-Liby, who is wanted over the 1998 East African embassy bombings — and some believe the Americans may have initially confused the two. When The Sunday Times contacted a senior FBI counter-terrorism official for information about the importance of the detained man, he sent material on al-Liby, the wrong man.
“Al-Libbi is just a ‘middle-level’ leader,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence investigator and leading expert on terrorism finance. “Pakistan and US authorities have completely overestimated his role and importance. He was never more than a regional facilitator between Al-Qaeda and local Pakistani Islamic groups.”
According to Brisard, the arrested man lacks the global reach of Al-Qaeda leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s number two, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, or Anas al-Liby.
Although British intelligence has evidence of telephone calls between al-Libbi and operatives in the UK, he is not believed to be Al-Qaeda’s commander of operations in Europe, as reported.
The only operations in which he is known to have been involved are two attempts to assassinate Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, in 2003. Last year he was named Pakistan’s most wanted man with a $350,000 (£185,000) price on his head.
No European or American intelligence expert contacted last week had heard of al-Libbi until a Pakistani intelligence report last year claimed he had taken over as head of operations after Khalid Shaikh Mohammad’s arrest. A former close associate of Bin Laden now living in London laughed: “What I remember of him is he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying.”
What is known is that al-Libbi moved from Libya to Pakistan in the mid-1980s before joining the jihad in Afghanistan. He married a Pakistani woman and is said to specialise in maps and diagrams. He is thought to have joined Bin Laden in Sudan with other Libyan nationals in about 1992 and to have become Al-Qaeda’s co-ordinator with home-grown Pakistani terrorist groups after 9/11.
Some believe al-Libbi’s significance has been cynically hyped by two countries that want to distract attention from their lack of progress in capturing Bin Laden, who has now been on the run for almost four years.
Even a senior FBI official admitted that al-Libbi’s “influence and position have been overstated”. But this weekend the Pakistani government was sticking to the line that al-Libbi was the third most important person in the Al-Qaeda network.
One American official tried to explain the absence of al-Libbi’s name on the wanted list by saying: “We did not want him to know he was wanted.”
Whatever his importance, al-Libbi is the sixth Al-Qaeda figure to have been caught in Pakistan, suggesting that the country is now the organisation’s centre of operations. The interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, conceded that Bin Laden and his deputy might be hiding in a Pakistani city.
“But the capture of al-Libbi will have made them very apprehensive. Whether big fry or small fry, they’re on the run, I can tell you that.”
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralliby.htm
Is this the guy they thought hey had?
Your understanding is incorrect.
I was talking abouit this particular issue. And I stand with that. You can take your snide remarks and shoive em.
"Your understanding is incorrect"
That's a very instructive comment. When then was the guy captured not the guy with the huge bounty on his head. Don't you think the guy who took over for Kalid Sheik would be the guy with the bigger bounty. What are you basing your instructive comment on?
That's a very instructive comment. When then was the guy captured not the guy with the huge bounty on his head. Don't you think the guy who took over for Kalid Sheik would be the guy with the bigger bounty. What are you basing your instructive comment on?
The blotchy guy was caught. Abu Faraj al-Liby is the blotchy guy. Abu Faraj al-Liby succeeded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as Emir of the Martyrdom Battalion in Pakistan. Khalid Sheihk Mohammed was referred to as Al Qaeda No. 3 guy when he was Emir of the Martyrdom Battalion. Abu Faraj al-Liby has been referred to as Al Qaeda's No. 3 guy since he took over for Khalid Sheihk Mohammed. There is no confusion except for what was falsely written in this Sunday Times article.
See posts 47, 53, 72, 75 and 77.
"I was talking abouit this particular issue. And I stand with that. You can take your snide remarks and shoive em."
Well, this particular issue is called terrorism, as far as I know. And while the Pakistani intelligence community DOES know a lot about terrorism, I'd say this knowledge comes more from engineering terror attacks in neighboring countries than from helping us defeating it. Ask any Indian Freeper about my "snide comments", and see what feedback you'll get. Look up who created and funded the Talibans, and see if it was France or Pakistan.
So, man, stand with your comments and your nice friends - but remember : sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.
You missed the whole point of my comment. I said if I had to take Pakistans word for the capture of theis terrorists over the Frenchman's word I would.
Did I even say Pakistan was my friend? I said nothing about supporting Pakistan's role against India. I do believe that the security forces of Pakistan are doing their own thing and the only reason they are cooperating with us is because of Musharuf (sic) and if he gets assinated they will turn on us quicker than a rattlesnake.
I don't have any blinders on man and I find your tone insulting.
No. That's the guy on the most wanted list, with the $5 million bounty. You can still collect it. :-)
To me the issue is simple - IF this Abu Faraj Al-Libbi guy is a real somebody in Al Qaeda, then you can be sure that he'll soon end up in US custody, away from the US mainland of course. If OTOH he stays in Pakistan, you can bet your last dollar that this guy is a relative nobody who has been squeezed for all he can give us.
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