Yesterday’s Men
By Bill Roggio
The arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi has already produced results. Well over
two dozen al Qaeda operatives have been arrested based on the intelligence gathered from interrogations.
Thirteen other al Qaeda members, including 10 Uzbuk, Chechan and Afghan nationals, have been arrested in the Bajaur Agency, but it is claimed these arrests are not related to al-Libbi’s capture. The Pakistani security forces have put a dent in several al Qaeda cells, and all is
not as quiet as claimed in Pakistan’s western tribal areas.
The status of al-Libbi’s detention is uncertain at this time as
the Pakistanis have not decided whether or not he will be turned over to the United States. A controversy has brewed over the importance of al-Libbi’s role within al Qaeda’s leadership.
Dan Darling reports that
Saif al-Adel is al Qaeda’s third in command, and that al-Libbi is the commander of al Qaeda in Pakistan, holding the same rank as Zarqawi does in Iraq.
Agence France-Presse, however, claims to have viewed the CIA’s classified listing of al Qaeda’s hierarchy and al-Libbi is ranked at number three.
…
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was also involved in numerous acts of terrorism, was the head of al-Qaeda’s military committee and established numerous contacts and networks world wide:
He is believed to have masterminded the suicide-hijackings in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and is regarded as one of the most senior operatives in Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. Sheikh Mohammed has not yet been charged in connection with the events of 11 September, in which more than 3,000 people died.
However he has been indicted, since 1996, with plotting to blow up 11 or 12 American airliners flying from south-east Asia to the United States in January, 1995.
The self-proclaimed head of al-Qaeda’s military committee has also been linked to
• the kidnap and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002
• the 2002 suicide bomb attack on a Tunisian synagogue in which 21 people died
• a plot to assassinate the Pope during the Pontiff’s 1995 visit to the Philippines
Al Qaeda is very selective in choosing its members, only the most trusted and ideologically pure are allowed to enter the inner circle of al Qaeda’s leadership. Men like al-Libbi, Binalshib, KSM, Atef and Zarqawi do not achieve status within al Qaeda based on one-and-done operations. They achieve their status by patient work, building contacts in the Islamists circles, establishing networks with regional Islamist terrorist groups, recruiting, training, raising money for al Qaeda’s operations, and planning and excuting successful missions. Al Qaeda emphasizes their purpose over the glory of the individual.
The reason Ramzi Binalshib, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Abu Farraj al-Libbi and
a host of al Qaeda operatives are “yesterday’s men” is because they have been detained or killed.
Image Problems:
Arthur Chrenkoff notes that
angering the United States is bad for the stylish terrorist’s image.
