Bin Laden aide captured in raid
'Top general' termed Al Qaeda planner
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- US and Pakistani officials said yesterday that they captured Osama bin Laden's top field organizer, who is accused of orchestrating two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Some coun-terterrorism officials described the suspect as Al Qaeda's third-ranking operative.
The arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi, during a raid in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, was hailed as a major blow to the terrorist organization's plans to attack the United States. Authorities said it brought them at least one step closer to locating the elusive Al Qaeda leader himself, who along with his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, remains a fugitive more than three and a half years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In Washington, President Bush described Libbi, who was born in Libya, as bin Laden's ''top general" and ''a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al Qaeda network." Bush called the capture a ''critical victory in the war on terror" that ''removes a dangerous enemy who is a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom."
Pakistani officials, meanwhile, said the raid about 30 miles north of Peshawar, which also netted at least one unidentified Al Qaeda suspect, marked a breakthrough in efforts to destroy a terror cell bent on toppling the government of Musharraf, who has been a key US ally in the war on terrorism. Libbi is accused of planning two bombings in December 2003 that narrowly missed Musharraf's closely-guarded motorcade.
''This is a historic . . . development," Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the Pakistani information minister, said in a telephone interview. ''We have caught a [terrorist] mastermind."
Libbi is being held by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency and is also being interrogated by US intelligence agencies, which assisted in his capture, US intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity. They declined to provide details of the American role in the raid. It was unclear yesterday whether Libbi would be transferred to the United States or remain in Pakistan to face charges.
Pakistani officials said the announcement of Libbi's capture was delayed while they sought information on the whereabouts of other Al Qaeda members in the area.
US intelligence officials said Libbi's capture was the most significant Al Qaeda arrest since Khalid Sheik Mohammed, chief of the network's operations, was arrested in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi two years ago. Libbi is believed to have taken over the role of Mohammed, the Kuwaiti-born terrorist who recruited the Sept. 11 hijackers and organized the attacks on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania that killed 3,000 people.
''His capture should be considered the most significant blow to the group since [Mohammed] was detained," said a US counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified. ''He took on some of [Mohammed's] leadership responsibilities and played a key role in directing global operations, including attack planning against the US homeland."
Terrorism specialists said Libbi's apparent rise in Al Qaeda shows that the group, under intense pressure since the war on terrorism began in 2001, has replaced many top field commanders who have either been captured or killed by the United States and its allies.
As Mohammed's protege, Libbi is believed to have first joined bin Laden's fledging network of diverse Islamic fundamentalist groups from North Africa, the Middle East, as well as South and Southeast Asia in the early 1990s, according to interviews with several government officials with access to current intelligence reports.
He first came to the attention of foreign intelligence services in Sudan in the mid-1990s when bin Laden was living in Khartoum. He is later believed to have worked with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which sheltered Qaeda leadership until it was toppled by the US military in late 2001.
Libbi's stature steadily grew as top Al Qaeda operatives such as Abu Zubaydah and Mohammed were detained, in 2002 and 2003, respectively, and he was given some of their responsibilities.
A US defense official, citing intelligence reports, said yesterday that ''starting in the 1990s he made a lot of connections from a lot of different groups under the rubric of the terrorist network. He did a good job of networking."
Most recently, the official added, Libbi focused primarily on planning operations inside the United States and United Kingdom and served as a chief ''facilitator and fund-raiser."
US officials added that a series of joint US and Pakistani operations last year that uncovered computer hard drives and other information led intelligence agencies to conclude that Libbi was playing a high-level role in Al Qaeda and had been increasingly close to bin Laden and Zawahri.
Pakistani authorities said Libbi, whose exact age is not known, was captured Monday along with the other suspect after a shootout with Pakistani forces in Mardan in the North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan. Security agents were led to Libbi by a tip that foreigners had been seen in the area, the officials said.
The New York Times quoted some European officials who expressed surprise at the US assessments of Libbi's importance. One official suggested that perhaps there was some confusion with Anas al-Liby, also from Libya, who is on the US list of most wanted terrorists and who is wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. But the Times quoted US intelligence officials as saying they had not confused the two Qaeda operatives.
Although he was not listed among the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, counterterrorism specialists said he is nonetheless a ''very big fish."
''They want to save [the most-wanted list] for the people who are most responsible for attacks against the United States," said Matthew Levitt, a former FBI terrorism analyst. ''He had not yet been. But he is a very important person even if he was not involved in attacks against the US."
Current and former intelligence officials said that if he cooperates Libbi could provide a treasure trove of leads.
''This guy was my No. 1 target," John McLaughlin, who retired as the acting director of the CIA last fall, told CNN yesterday, contending that Libbi would know what Al Qaeda is planning. ''If anyone knows where Osama bin Laden is, this is the man."
Others cautioned that while Libbi's capture was important, it still only puts a dent in the loosely-knit network of Islamic fundamentalists around the world who have taken up bin Laden's standard.
''They call him the No. 3, but you have to consider there are other operatives outside that region [such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq] that are more important than him," said Evan Kohlmann, an author and specialist on Al Qaeda's roots and evolving nature. ''Al Qaeda is not a highly structured organization. It is a Mafia, and you prove yourself by violence."
Burnett reported from Islamabad; Bender from Washington, D.C. 