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.”
Anas Al-Liby
Up to $5 Million Reward
Aliases: Anas Al-Sabai, Anas Al-Libi, Nazih Al-Raghie, Nazih Abdul Hamed Al-Raghie Anas Al-Liby recently lived in the United Kingdom, where he has political asylum. He is believed to currently be in Afghanistan. Speaks Arabic and English. Indicted for: conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy National Defense utilities of the United States.
I'll drink to that!
---somehow in the long run using suicide as a weapon doesnt seem like a great military stategy---
You remind me of the old Cheech and Chong bit about the Kamikaze pilots....."Honorable General Sir, you out of you Fu***ing mind!"
Other links here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Faraj_al-Libbi
This is a typical eurotrash story. There are two guys with similar names. The one recently captured really is a big shot, but was not on the FBI list because that list first requires an indictment.
In this case, the ISI and CIA know what they have. We can only hope he sings.
Yeah, same here. LOL
The terrorist who was captured has a skin disorder, evidently, and was quite distinctive:
Abu Faraj al-Libbi
Anas Al-Liby
yup. lol
The notebook was a terrific prize.
I wish that I could destroy my old hard drives so easily as that pig and his cohorts claim that he did.
Perhaps someday Al Jazeera and the AP public relations experts who purchase the AJ BS articles (for the so called journalists hiding behind the protective cover of our US military) might one day insist on just such a thing. Objective news, and journalism, brought to you by Al Jazeera and Dan Rather et al reporting.
The terrorists ought to go and watch the old movies where the Detectives were able to reassemble ashes from burned photographs. LoL! . Purging a hard drive is a hard job. All your captured hard drive info are belong to us!
I am telling you that we are fighting with a bunch of empty Burkas here. (What do Muslim men call their dresses by the way?")
Gosh I have no business ranting out loud on a perfectly quiet evening here......
Abu Faraj al-Liby succeeded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as Emir of the Martyrdom Battalion in Pakistan. He was wanted for two assasination attempts on Musharraf. He been considered Al Qaeda's number three man ever since Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended. This is not mixup. The artilce from the Sunday Times is BS.
At some point, Faraj became a deputy to KSM. His contacts stretch around the world, including sleeper cells in Great Britain and the United States. He is also known as "Dr. Taufeek" (Taufiq, Taufeeq, an Arabic name meaning "prosperity"). Presumably Faraj is not the same Dr. Taufiq who routinely offers to send illicit Nigerian oil millions to e-mail recipients who provide a bank account number.
At the moment, Faraj hangs his hat in Pakistan. His extended visit to the country has been a violent one, but he's working to make the country into a more hospitable environment. Within the last year, Faraj is believed to have instigated two assassination attempts on Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.
Faraj is usually described by the media as al Qaeda's No. 3 leader, which is somewhat misleading since the terror network doesn't have a traditional hierarchy. However, he does appear to be a high-ranking and well-connected operative, and like Khalid, it appears he has direct authority over Qaeda's many sleeper cells around the world.
While Faraj maintains a low-profile, he gets out more than bin Laden and Zawahiri. He is reputedly one of a tiny handful of people who know the exact location where bin Laden and Zawahiri are hiding out. As missed opportunities go, the Khan sting ranks up there among the biggest.
The Pakistani government is offering a reward of 20 million rupees for the capture of Faraj
Geraldo on Fox News is about to talk about the capture of UBL's #3 after this commercial. It sounds as if he (Geraldo) has not heard about this article.
Wiki is BS. Anybody can make an updated entry.
Bingo!
Tex......you shouldn't buy into this piece of Eurotrash. They are quoting one French guy ....come on Tex....your arent this gullible.
He is on Double SECRET probation
The links are BBC, AP, etc....not that they're right, but what are you basing anything else on?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
