Yet again, the "Number 3 Leader of Al-Qaeda" has been captured:
A Libyan seized in Pakistan this week was the fourth purported No. 3 leader of al-Qaida killed or captured since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the global dragnet has yet to reach up the terror group's hierarchy to the main prizes Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Pakistani and U.S. officials hope the arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi after a shootout in a graveyard Monday may change that.i At least five other al-Qaida suspects have been detained in Pakistan over the past week, intelligence officials say...
The first man dubbed al-Qaida's No. 3, Mohammed Atef, was killed by a U.S. airstrike on Kabul in November 2001 as the Taliban regime crumbled in Afghanistan.
Abu Zubaydah, the next to assume the role, was captured March 28, 2002, in the eastern city of Faisalabad. The Saudi-born Palestinian survived gunshot wounds in the stomach, groin and leg, and has been in U.S. custody ever since.
Zubaydah's replacement, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was arrested in Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital, on March 1, 2003. He also is in U.S. custody.
Ramzi Binalshibh, another top bin Laden deputy, was arrested in the southern city of Karachi on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
al-Libbi--can we call him "Scooter?"--will presumably become quite familiar with the term "waterboarding" over the next few weeks, and will likely be subject to additional niceties like "intensive interrogation" in a region of our choosing, but "beyond our jurisdiction." Ah, diplomacy.
There's hope that al-Libbi knows--and, with the help of some "intensive interrogation," will reveal--Osama's hidey hole. However, I doubt it. If three separate "Number 3 Leaders" were taken into custody, does anyone really think number four would magically be entrusted with the secret? Besides, by the time they're done with him, Libbi might as well confess to shooting JFK AND causing the Hindenburg to crash. Torture isn't exactly a reliable method of obtaining information.
But, I guess it makes some
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