Oh by the way
Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of 'mistaken identity'THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as "a critical victory in the war on terror". According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists' third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as "among the flotsam and jetsam" of the organisation.
...the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI's most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department "rewards for justice" programme.
Another Libyan is on the FBI list--Anas al-Liby, who is wanted over the 1998 East African embassy bombings--and some believe the Americans may have initially confused the two. When The Sunday Times contacted a senior FBI counter-terrorism official for information about the importance of the detained man, he sent material on al-Liby, the wrong man.
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One American official tried to explain the absence of al-Libbi’s name on the wanted list by saying: "We did not want him to know he was wanted."
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* Ray, 5/09/2005 01:43:08 PM
