Al-Qaeda's Chief Caught

WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the network's chief of operations in the Persian Gulf, has been captured, senior U.S. government officials said Thursday.

Al-Nashiri, a suspected mastermind of the USS Cole (news - web sites) bombing in October 2000, was captured in an undisclosed foreign country earlier this month and is in U.S. custody, officials said.

He is the highest-ranking al-Qaida operative captured since the CIA (news - web sites), FBI (news - web sites) and Pakistani authorities captured bin Laden's operations chief, Abu Zubaydah, in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March.

U.S. officials had recently said a senior al-Qaida leader had been caught, but they had declined to identify him. On Sunday, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the leader was providing information to his interrogators.

Al-Nashiri is suspected in a number of other al-Qaida terrorist plots, including the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. One of the suicide bombers in the attack on the Nairobi embassy, known only as Azzam, is believed to have been his cousin. Al-Nashiri is said to be either Saudi or Yemeni.

He has also traveled under a number of other names, including Umar Mohammed al-Harazi and Abu Bilal al-Makki. U.S. officials believe he was in Ghazni, Afghanistan (news - web sites), around the time the war began in October 2001. He is thought to have moved to Pakistan when the Taliban fell, and he may have gone to Yemen in recent months. Some tribesmen in Yemen, however, said he had gone to Malaysia.

In the Cole attack, U.S. officials have said al-Nashiri gave telephone orders to the bombers from the United Arab Emirates. He then fled to Afghanistan.

In addition to the Cole attack, officials say he has been involved with a number of plots targeting the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) in the past three years.

He is thought to be behind a nearly identical attempt to bomb another destroyer, the USS The Sullivans, nine months before the Cole attack, at Aden. That attack failed when the suicide boat, overloaded with explosives, sank.

Most recently, he has been tied to a failed al-Qaida plot to bomb U.S. and British warships crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, U.S. officials have said. In June, three Saudis were arrested in Morocco in connection with that plot.

He is also suspected of being behind plans to bomb the 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain, a plot revealed in January by another top al-Qaida operative captured by Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan.

The 5th Fleet has responsibility for the Persian Gulf and provides ships for the operations of U.S. Central Command, which is running the war effort in Afghanistan. It also supports the enforcement of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, the U.N. economic embargo against Iraq and the monitoring of sea traffic from the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

The capture of al-Nashiri is the latest reported success in the U.S. effort to capture or kill top al-Qaida chiefs. On Nov. 3, a CIA Predator drone fired a missile at a car carrying several suspected al-Qaida operatives, killing six, including al-Qaida's top Yemen operative, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, who is also suspected of involvement in the Cole plot.

First of all, thanks for the extra info (especially correcting the Rifa Taha error).

On a couple of other points:

- Hanbali is the nom de guerre of Riduan Isamuddin, so no mistake there.

- Tawfiq Attash Khallad = Tawfiq bin Atash

- Mohammed Said Ali-Hasan is not a senior member of the group, but is a premier operative within the Martyrdom Battalion. A suicide videotape of his was recovered inside the ruins of Mohammed Atef's home in Afghanistan. Unless he was promoted since then, he is simply a cell leader.

I'm not including many of the most wanted from a number of previous al-Qaeda antics because far too many of them are basically foot soldiers who were lucky enough to have escaped with their lives intact.

Here's the revised list:

SHURA MAJLIS

These are the first-tier guys and the actual members of al-Qaeda's board of directors. Any one of them is a possible successor to Osama bin Laden.

Name: Osama bin Laden
Function: Emir-General
Status: Unknown, possibly killed at Tora Bora in December 2001, now believed to be at large

Name: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Function: Second-in-Command/Egyptian Islamic Jihad Emir-General
Status: At Large

Name: Mohammed Atef
Function: Supreme Military Commander
Status: Dead

Name: Abu Zubaydah
Function: Global Operations Chief
Status: Apprehended

Name: Rifa Ahmed Taha
Function: Gamaa al-Islamiyyah Secretary-General
Status: At Large

Name: Thirwat Salah Shirhata
Function: Egyptian Islamic Jihad Deputy Emir
Status: At Large

Name: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
Function: Middle East Operations Chief
Status: Apprehended

Name: Abu Musab Zarqawi
Function: Former Southeast Asian Operations Chief, currently Global Operations Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Zubair al-Haili
Function: North African Operations Chief
Status: Apprehended

Name: Tawfiq Attash Khallad
Function: South Asian Operations Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Mohammed al-Masri
Function: East African Operations Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Zaid Khayr
Function: Unknown
Status: At Large

Name: Mohammed Salah
Function: Senior Explosive Expert, Central African Operations Chief
Status: Dead

Name: Tariq Anwar al-Sayyid Ahmad
Function: Balkans Operations Chief
Status: Dead

Name: Saif al-Adel
Function: Former second-in-command of al-Qaeda's military, currently Supreme Military Commander
Status: At Large

Name: Amin al-Haq
Function: Shura Majlis Security Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Hafs the Mauritanian (aka "Mr. Mauritania")
Function: Theologian
Status: Formerly believed dead, now believed to be at large

TERRORIST TRAINING CAMP COMMANDERS

These are the guys who supervise the training, indoctrination, and assignment of al-Qaeda operatives worldwide. They also seperate all recruits into four categories: mujahideen (foot soldiers), shahideen (suicide bombers), takfiri (sleepers), and ansar (support personnel). Each category has its own version of the "Afghan Guide to Jihad," al-Qaeda's training manual (all four versions combined are roughly 3,000 pages in length) that provides instruction to recruits for just about any situation imaginable.

Name: Sheikh Ibn al-Liby
Function: Terrorist Training Camp Commander
Status: Apprehended

Name: Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi
Function: Terrorist Training Camp Commander
Status: Apprehended

Name: Omar Bandon
Function: Terrorist Training Camp Commander
Status: At Large

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

This is the committee that oversees al-Qaeda's legitimate and illegitimate businesses, charities, drug smuggling, ect.

Name: Sheikh Saeed (Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi?)
Function: Head of the Financial Committee
Status: At Large

Name: Mohammed Jamal Khalifa
Function: Financier and envoy to the Saudi Bin Laden Group
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Jafar al-Jaziri
Function: Financier
Status: Dead

Name: Abu Salah al-Yemeni
Function: Financier
Status: Dead

Name: Abdul Rahim Riyadh
Function: Financier
Status: Apprehended

Name: Ahmed Saeed al-Kadr
Function: Financier
Status: At Large

Name: Hamza al-Qatari
Function: Financier
Status: Dead

MEDIA COMMITTEE

This the group that manages and updates the websites, oversees the E-Jihad, and is responsible for all statements by the al-Qaeda leadership. Not a lot of declassified info on this one.

Name: Suleiman Abu Ghaith
Function: Spokesman
Status: At Large

Name: Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri
Function: Spokesman/Recruiter
Status: At Large

Name: Sheikh Omar al-Bakri
Function: Spokesman
Status: At Large

Name: Sheikh Abu Qatada al-Philisteeni
Function: Spokesman
Status: Apprehended

WMD COMMITTEE

Al-Qaeda employs a number of Muslim scientists of various nationalities to assist it in procuring as well as manufacturing the necessary materials to create chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.

Name: Midhat Mursi
Function: Top scientist for nuclear weapons research
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Khabab
Function: Biological and chemical weapons expert
Status: At Large

Name: Assadalah Abdul Rahman
Function: Weapons of Mass Destruction Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Bashir al-Yemeni
Function: Unknown
Status: At Large

MILITARY COMMITTEE

These are the definite guys to watch out for. Most have a great deal of combat experience either from serving in Arab militaries or else from fighting in Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, or the Philippines.

Name: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Function: Martyrdom Battalion Commander-in-Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Abd al-Aziz al-Jamal
Function: Unknown
Status: At Large

Name: Bilal bin Marwan
Function: Arabian Sea Commander-in-Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi
Function: Yemen Commander-in-Chief
Status: Dead

Name: Mohsen al-Fadli
Function: Kuwait Commander-in-Chief
Status: Apprehended

Name: Essid Sami ben Khemais
Function: Southern Europe Commander-in-Chief
Status: Apprehended

Name: Saqar al-Jadawi
Function: Unknown
Status: At Large

Name: Mohammed Omar Abdel Rahman
Function: Military Commander
Status: At Large

Name: Ahmed Omar Abdel Rahman
Function: Military Commander
Status: Apprehended

Name: Abu Walid
Function: Military Commander
Status: At Large

Name: Abdel Hari al-Iraqi
Function: Afghanistan Commander-in-Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Abu Leith al-Lybi
Function: Algeria/Libya Commander-in-Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Shamil Basayev
Function: Chechnya Commander-in-Chief
Status: At Large

Name: Amir ibn al-Khattab
Function: Dagestan Commander-in-Chief
Status: Dead

Name: Hanbali
Function: Indonesia Commander-in-Chief
Status: At Large

Feel free to put this info on an HTML table, but note that it is subject to frequent revision as we learn more about the structure of the enemy alliance.

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