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Not exactly.

This guy was one of the people in the media committee charge of keeping up to date with al-Qaeda propoganda, releasing communiques that would hit all of the right chords, and probably had at least some role in analyzing Western media and then reporting back to the al-Qaeda leadership which accusations they should hurl at the West whenever the time came to talk, either through video or audio recording or through website statements.

The recent letter attributed to bin Laden currently being circulated by Azzam Publications that basically lays out his case against the US likely owes a great deal to Abdel Maqsoud's handiwork, citing everything from the Palestinians to Chechnya to Algeria to Kashmir to the southern Philippines while simultaneously including all the traditional left-wings claims about the United States to appeal to the peace activists.

While this guy wasn't a front-line soldier for the cause, he provided a great deal of ideological direction to those who were. Having him taken out of circulation is a very good thing.

He's surely being defended by some mighty big names; and someone who thinks bin Laden is unIslamic would hardly be hanging out in Peshawar.

If that's where he was taken, I'm betting BL was there around the same time if he actually survived the bombings.