KARACHI - Pakistan came tantalizingly close this week to presenting President George W Bush with the perfect election present and a major coup in the "war on terror". But at the last minute the suspect apparently got away.
On Tuesday, Pakistan and US security forces launched a major operation in Karachi, which different sources based in Washington and Karachi told Asia Times Online was aimed at catching Abu Faraj al-Libi, a Libyan believed to be the No 3 in al-Qaeda and from al-Qaeda's North African cell, appointed as al-Qaeda's chief of South Asian operations.
After four hours, though, only a few people were rounded up, and Faraj was nowhere to be found.
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