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Will The Real Al Qaeda No. 3 Please Stand Up?
By Sherrie Gossett
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
December 16, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - The reported killing of a senior al Qaeda
operative by a CIA-launched missile in Pakistan on Dec. 1 has
sparked debate among terrorism experts over the true identity of
the target and the accuracy of numerical rankings that the
Pentagon and White House have attached to other captured or
killed terrorists.

Some say the rankings represent public relations run amok, while
others say they prove that the U.S. continues to rely on faulty
Pakistani intelligence.

On Dec. 3, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told reporters
that Abu Hamza Rabia had been killed in an explosion two days
earlier. An aide to Musharraf told reporters that Rabia was "very
important in al Qaeda, maybe number three or five" in the terror
group's hierarchy. Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao
added that Rabia's death was a "big blow to al Qaeda."

Several American news organizations, including the Washington
Post and Los Angeles Times, then quoted multiple, unnamed U.S.
intelligence officials as saying that Rabia was al Qaeda's
number-three man, the operational commander or military
commander, all terms typically used interchangeably. Headlines
around the world trumpeted the death of the "al Qaeda number
three man"

Last weekend, Stephen Hadley, national security advisor to
President Bush, appeared on CNN and Fox News Sunday,
describing Rabia as "the chief operational planner for al Qaeda,"
who had been "involved in planning attacks against the United
States."

But the day before Hadley's appearances, terrorism expert and
author Christopher L. Brown was labeling it all a case of mistaken
identity. Rabia was wanted for plotting to assassinate Musharraf,
Brown said, was probably a local senior member of al Qaeda, but
was far from being its military mastermind.

Brown, a researcher with a Washington think tank, has briefed
members of Congress and senior administration officials on key
threats, and he has prepared testimony and briefing materials for
officials at the Department of Defense, State Department, CIA,
National Security Council and the White House.

Rabia has never appeared on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists"
list and no known reward has been posted for his capture, Brown
points out.

A LexisNexis database search turns up no news articles written
about Rabia prior to his reported killing, except for an Aug. 18,
2004, announcement by the Pakistani government of a reward for
his capture and that of six other al Qaeda suspects accused of
attempting to assassinate President Musharraf on Dec. 14 and
25, 2003.

The 'real' al Qaeda number three, Brown contends, is Saif al-Adel
(also known as Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi), who was
previously reported by numerous independent sources to have
become al Qaeda's chief of the military committee (operational
commander) following the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in
March 2003.

Unlike Rabia, al-Adel and his ranking are mentioned in numerous
news articles, briefings and even in congressional testimony. On
May 20, 2003, Reuters quoted terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna
as saying that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest elevated al-Adel
because he was "the most competent man" and "extraordinarily
bright." Gunaratna also pointed out that as a "highly structured
organization," Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda "would have made a
point of formally appointing a successor to Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed."

Saif al-Adel is also still listed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists
list with a $5 million reward offered for his apprehension. Al-Adel
is suspected of having trained some of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist hijackers and has been linked to the Aug. 7, 1998,
bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and
Nairobi, Kenya. The U.S. has sought al-Adel since his alleged
involvement in the training of Somali rebels, who killed 18 U.S.
servicemen in Mogadishu in the notorious 'Blackhawk Down'
incident in October 1993.

In March of 2005 Jordanian analyst Bassam al-Baddarin wrote of
al Qaeda's "2020" plan, which outlined the vision of the "strategic
brain" of the group -- Saif al-Adel. The "2020" plan made world
headlines.

Al-Adel's Iranian connection

Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the battle at Tora
Bora, some al Qaeda fighters, including al-Adel, were reported to
have fled to Iran.

"We began to converge on Iran one after the other," Saif al-Adel
recalled in a recent book by an Egyptian journalist. "The fraternal
brothers in the peninsula of the Arabs, Kuwait, and the United
Arab Emirates who were outside Afghanistan, had already arrived
... We set up a central leadership and working groups ..."

Brown said Iran's announcement that it "seized" al-Adel in May
2003 was not credible. He pointed to another report in a London
Arabic daily newspaper that quoted Iranian sources and indicated
that al-Adel and his al Qaeda cohorts left Iran following the May
12, 2003, bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and headed for the
triple border area of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In June 2005, the German investigative magazine Cicero, known
for its intelligence contacts, reported that about 25 al Qaeda
leaders, including al-Adel and three of bin Laden's sons were
running terrorist operations from their refuge in Iran, where they
were provided safe haven, logistical support and equipment by
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Soon after the reports of the CIA missile attack on Abu Hamza
Rabia, Iran's top intelligence official announced that "there are
no al-Qaeda leaders inside Iran.

"We do have a long border with Afghanistan and when the
Americans bombed the country, some people crossed this area,
but we extradited them or sent them back," the Iranian official
added.

Dan Darling, consultant for the Manhattan Institute's Center for
Policing Terrorism, has also asserted that Saif al-Adel is "the real
al Qaeda No. 3." And the Israeli intelligence group, DEBKA File,
reported that "[Rabia] is not a member of al Qaeda's high
command and certainly was not Osama bin Laden's Number
Three."

When questioned about Rabia, former CIA Director R. James
Woolsey told Cybercast News Service that he had never heard
of the man.

On Dec. 5, the well-known Indian terrorism expert B. Raman,
sent Cybercast News Service an analysis stating that the
reported killing of Rabia was "mired in contradictions," including
the fact that no body had been recovered. Raman is the former
head of the counter-terrorism division of the Research & Analysis
Wing in India's external intelligence agency.

Still another al Qaeda number three official

Raman also referenced Abu Faraj al-Libbi, another terrorist
previously described by Pakistani intelligence, then U.S. officials,
as al Qaeda's third ranking official when he was captured in May
of this year. "[W]hile the FBI did not believe that Abu Faraj and
Rabia were that highly placed in Al Qaeda, the CIA rated both of
them as among the top planners of Al Qaeda." Raman noted.

Raman reported that before the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., Rabia
was trained by Midhat Mursi (aka Abu Khabab), another
Egyptian, in an Afghan camp to do research and development on
chemical and biological weapons, particularly toxins. "[This] was
not highlighted by the Pakistani authorities in their media
briefing," Raman said.

On Dec. 5, the global intelligence firm Stratfor reported that
neither Rabia nor Abu Faraj al-Libbi were likely the masterminds
Pakistani and U.S. intelligence agencies made them out to be. "It
is more likely that these individuals, rather than being third in
command of the jihadist network, were high-level leaders
involved in day-to-day operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan,"
the Stratfor report stated.

"The Pakistanis would have an interest in propagating the notion
that al Qaeda's third-highest ranking member was killed. By
assigning a high value to Rabia, Islamabad can placate
Washington by showing progress and cooperation in the war on
terrorism," according to Stratfor.

"The Pakistani officials [previously] stated that they were not
aware of the involvement of Abu Faraj [al-Libbi] in any act of
jihadi terrorism outside the Pakistan-Afghanistan region," Raman
noted. "They were unable to explain why they projected him as
the international operational head of Al Qaeda when there was no
evidence of his role in any terrorist strike outside the
Afghanistan-Pakistan region."

Why the confusion?

What Rabia and al-Libbi have in common is they both targeted
Pakistani President Musharraf for assassination, said Brown.

"The truth is Pakistan is yanking our chain on al Qaeda and
getting America and the CIA to eliminate threats to their regime,"
he added. The elimination of lower level leaders or threats to
Musharraf is "not necessarily a bad thing," but relying on
Pakistani intelligence to rank al Qaeda members "puts us in
potential danger."

Saif al-Adel is believed to still be operating today and remains
listed on the FBI's list of Most Wanted Terrorists.

When questioned about the doubts raised by terrorism experts, a
CIA spokesperson told Cybercast News Service that "these
titles are somewhat fluid.

"This is not uncommon to have disagreements over titles.
Number three is certainly applicable. It's certainly where we
came down on it, but there [are] always disagreements among
academics and think tanks. Not necessarily everyone agrees. If
it's more comfortable, you can use 'senior' and 'certainly planning
operations.'"

When asked whether Rabia had been planning international or
local operations, the CIA spokesperson declined comment.

When asked to comment on Saif al-Adel's current status, she also
declined comment. "We don't usually comment until after they're
gone."

Jean-Charles Brisard disagrees with those who doubt the roles of
Rabia and al-Libbi in the al Qaeda hierarchy. Brisard is a
well-known terrorism financing investigator and chief investigator
in the lawsuit filed by the family members of the victims in the
9/11 attacks. He is also the author of "Zarqawi: the New Face of
Al-Qaeda," a book praised for its first-hand information about
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terror mastermind in Iraq.

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) had two principal lieutenants,"
Brisard said, "Abu Hamza Rabia for external operations and Abu
Faraj al-Libbi for the Pakistani-Afghan operations. This is why I
refuted at the time that al Libbi had replaced KSM and played the
same role."

Brisard said that based on various intelligence sources with whom
he has consulted, Rabia was actually a protege and confidant of
the undisputed number two man in al Qaeda -- Ayman
al-Zawahiri.

"Zawahiri was the one who insisted in naming [Rabia] as Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed's deputy," Brisard said. "According to
interrogations of al-Libbi, [Rabia] maintained a direct contact
with Zawahiri for planning and operations. He was a high value
target, a key al Qaeda member and one of the few who
interacted between the al Qaeda historical leaders and foreign
cells, and surely not someone we can downgrade to a simple
'ground commander.'"

Terrorism expert and author Evan F. Kohlmann, however,
believes that the whole Pentagon and White House practice of
assigning numeric rankings to terrorists "doesn't make any
sense.

"This is the reality. We really don't know who the number three
is," said Kohlmann. "Even when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was in
charge of al Qaeda's military wing, was he number three in the
organization? There's no way to quantify that."

Since Mohammed's capture, al Qaeda's structure has become
"more nebulous," Kohlmann asserted. "It's not even clear what
the precise role of bin Laden's son is.

"This isn't a Fortune 500 company with clearly defined roles. It's
more like the mafia. You shoot up in the organization by violence,
by inspiring fear and respect in others," Kohlmann said.

"That's the problem of the numbers game. It's a way to sell a
story to media. But people wind up then doubting credible
information coming from the military, for example," he added.
"This is a PR guy's dream, turned nightmare."

[copyrite by CNS News]