When the government announced that Abu Faraj al-Libbi had been captured, they claimed he was the number three ranking member of al-qaeda. I was shocked to hear it, because I track news related to 9/11 quite closely, and I had never encountered his name before. I also had to laugh at the announcement of yet another ‘number three’.
Hit the First Draft link for sources:
Well…
Here’s one…
Al-Qaeda’s third-ranked leader and alleged mastermind of this month’s bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been seized in Iran, according to senior intelligence sources.
The United States has identified Saif al-Adel as the most senior al-Qaeda member linked to the attacks that killed 34 people, including one Australian.
And another…
US government officials have told the Wall Street Journal that the third-ranking leader of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, personally murdered its reporter Daniel Pearl in February 2002. The paper said on 21 October that new secret information showed that Mohammed, the supposed mastermind of the 11 September attacks captured in Pakistan in March this year, had slit Pearl’s throat with a knife.
Maybe another here…
First to be arrested on Monday morning will be Sheikh Mohammed Sheikh — Bin Laden’s number six and a suspected mastermind of the terrorist group’s terror operations.
And the next day, just after lunch, Bin Laden’s number three — Mohammed Sheikh Mohammed — will be caught attempting to install plutonium freshly bought from Baghdad into a bomb in a suitcase with a flight label to London around the handle. He is a known mastermind and he doesn’t mind who knows it.
Perhaps a fifth three?
During a series of visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan, [Iyman] Faris was introduced to bin Laden and at least one senior operational leader, who gave Faris his orders for when he returned to the United States.
The operational leader, identified in court documents as “C-2” and said to be bin Laden’s “number three man,” told Faris in 2002 al Qaeda was again planning simultaneous attacks on New York and Washington.
First Draft
To this list I’d like to add Mohammed Atef, who was announced as bin-Laden’s ‘number three’ when he was killed during the Afghan War.
I suppose the CIA will explain that everytime they capture or kill a ‘number three’ a new ‘number three’ is created. They know who the new ‘number three’ is by calling UBL on his satellite phone and asking him who has been promoted. Or maybe they just guess. Or maybe they are totally full of shit. In any case, this al-Libbi catfish is accused of being behind the assassination attempts on Musharraf (better known as ‘The General’). And it is not too surprising that the Pakistanis are torturing the living bejeesus out of him.
Now, please read the following excerpt from the notoriously unreliable UK Telegraph very carefully. Keep in mind that the UK Telegraph is a conduit for some the most blatant disinformation in the propaganda war on terror. You tell me which intelligence agency is providing this info to the Telegraph, and whether they are doing the interrogating, sitting in the room while al-Libbi is tortured, or just watching through one-way glass:
The officials say that al-Libbi, who is believed to be al-Qaeda’s number three, has defied efforts to make him reveal valuable intelligence about its senior hierarchy, despite coming under “physical pressure” to do so…
…One senior intelligence official told The Telegraph: “So far he has not told us anything solid that could lead to the high-value targets. It is too early to judge whether he is a hard nut to crack, or simply that he doesn’t know more than he has told us.”
Al-Libbi had been beaten and injected with the so-called “truth drug”, sodium pentothal, said the official. “They have tried all possible methods, from the ‘third degree’ to injecting him with a truth serum but it is hard to break him,” he said.
In time, the officials hope that al-Libbi, 28, will tell them about forthcoming attacks, al-Qaeda’s funding and its sophisticated coded communications network.
Mr Aziz said yesterday: “Certainly al-Libbi is a senior member of al-Qaeda, and we were on the look-out for him for a while.”
UK Telegraph
Pakistan is apparently going to keep this man in their custody because we like our torture done in other countries beside our own. But it appears no one wants to admit this, except whomever is leaking to the Telegraph:
A government minister, however, told The Telegraph last night that British intelligence officials may be allowed to join the interrogation.
“This would be done once we exhaust him completely and are satisfied that he is not preparing to commit a terror act in our country,” the minister said.
That’s remarkable, isn’t it? The use of ‘we’, I mean. ‘We’ will get to talk to him after ‘we’ are done exhausting him. Not a lot of distinction between the Pakistani brutalizers and the British ones, is there?
Here’s another tip. When we catch bad guys we don’t announce it right away. This is true for Saddam and it’s true for al-Libbi. First we tortured him REALLY badly for five or six days. Then we announced his capture and resumed torturing him. Then we told the world that we were torturing him because we think it makes us look tough.
States?
Steve Emerson: Well, he moved up in the ranks because most of the people in front of him, perhaps up to 10 of them, were sort of taken out of circulation. So whether by design or whether he volunteered, he became number three. What is interesting, Linda, he was picked up probably five or six days ago, maybe as much as a week ago, and so there’s definite proof that the Pakistani authorities have been interrogating him without releasing it so that the bad guys including Ayman al-Zawahiri or bin Laden were unaware that he was taken out and interrogated, so they could follow up on leads before they went cold.
Dayside w/ Linda Vester. May 5, 2005 1 pm
Folks, we torture people. Let’s just get it out in the open and admit it. We are a criminal nation that has become so unmoored from any semblance of decency that we actually promote the fact that we torture people. And then we deny it just to insult everyone’s intelligence and make them confused.
Al-Libbi may be a bad person who wanted to kill innocent people as well as world leaders. But they have already admitted that torturing him hasn’t worked. Calling him bin-Laden’s ‘number three’ isn’t fooling me, and it shouldn’t fool you. And it doesn’t excuse violating the treaties we are obligated to obey under the Constitution of the United States of America.
Now that the US is primarily a bully and a mercenary, I suppose all those old traditional values, treaties, and international laws are holding back the ol’ business plan. Kind of ironic that the hire-a-thug leader should still have to outsource much of its torturing. That will have to change before the markets get antsy.
So they dredge up some minor terrorist every month or so and give him the “studio treatment” until he’s a big star.
I love First Draft’s “Jackoesque” term. Talk about a way to paint a mental picture of somebody.
Will we ever know the truth about this guy? No. WIll he ever get proper legal representation? No. Will he ever see the light of day again? Definitely not. Will we be safer he’s off the streets permanently? I doubt it.
There are the goofy terrorist wannabes like the Australian Mahdouh Habib — whose torture in Pakistan, Bagram Air Base in Afhganistan, Egypt’s prisons, and Guantanamo I tracked for some time in Kos diaries, the low-level suicide bombers, al-libby and others like him whose murky activities are worrisome. How can we know, truly, their involvement if we use ineffective torture on them?
Before Bush, we did well with the olf-fashioned interrogation methods employed by the F.B.I. We apprehended and got information from the likes of Ressam, who was caught right here — a half mile from where I live. We caught and got solid information from the African embassy bombers. All of them have had attorneys, legal rights, vastly better treatment in U.S. prisons, and long sentences.
Why can’t that work now? I’ve asked that question for a long time, and I haven’t got a decent explanation for the Bush administration’s ghoulish preference for torture, while all the while denying same. I think there is no explanation that is the product of a rational and conscious mind.
…as to say that Abu Faraj is a minor terrorist, even though his status has apparently been enhanced to make somebody – in Pakistan? in the U.S.? – look good.
You’ll just have to trust me on my source since I can’t reveal it. In an attempt to reach his mother and sister, Abu Faraj called an office in Tunisia about three weeks ago. The office was leased by someone whose family is tied to Abu Faraj by marriage but who are in no way tied to terrorists. Whether his phone call was in desperation over the closing noose or for some other reason is unknown. Within minutes of that phone call, Tunisian special police had surrounded the building.
Abu Faraj is 33 (other sources claim different ages) and has not seen his mother, who lives in Libya, or his sister, who now lives in England, for 12 or 13 years. He went to Sudan in the early ’90s and became involved with bin Laden there. His mother has not yet been told he’s been captured, much less tortured.
Fascinating, MB. Keep us posted, please.
Why don’t these guys have cyanide pills? Anything but what he’s going through now and the rest of his life.
Hello MB, nice to see you and hope you are doing well. As susan said, hope you can keep us posted on this info.
Something odd about this story. We is from Libya, spent time in Sudan and was reportedly in the tribal areas of Pakistan. His wife is Pakistani. So, that means the people in Tunisia were Pakistani.
It still seems strange to me that their phone would be tapped if they are distant relations of his wife.
Is his mother in Tunisia?
That would make sense of it.
I still wonder if voice recognition got him, because I can’t believe we would be actively monitoring a distant relation’s phone so that we could surround the building in minutes.
Crazy stuff.
…The people in Tunisia were not Pakistani. Many Libyan families are big. So, being connected by marriage doesn’t mean it has something to do with Abu Faraj’s wife, but rather marriage through another member of the family. Again, you’ll just have to trust me because I can’t be more specific, but the connection is through cousins.
oh okay, that makes more sense.
Thinking like a westerner again.
At this point I’d be more inclined to believe this is just an elaborate propaganda set-up(wag the dog scenario) with the guy being an actor and the whole thing made up to make us look good…but as usual anything bushco touches gets all screwed up and then makes us look like bumbling fools or worse.
I used to be such a naive person before bush got into office and now I’m starting to sound like some conspiracy nut.
If you have sources that you can’t talk about, due to the current situation both here and in Pakistan, might be a good idea to keep that information offline.
Just a suggestion from a crotchety old man 😉
I think using the moniker number 3 was simply so our media doesn’t have go around saying ‘number 2’..say captured number 2 often enough and fast enough and it starts sounding like ‘captured number poo’ and we can’t have the illustrious media sounding foolish now can we…but then this whole story is probably crap anyway.
Also reminds of the guy in Iraq that was a high up member of Saddam’s inner circle(can’t remember his name offhand) and we killed him several times. Dam we’re good.
This is beginning to sound like an episode of The Prisoner.
Excellent diary. Great work and research. I strongly suspect you know more about bin Laden’s people than Bush does. He probably believes his own lies about the hunt and capture of people at this point.
I agree, Carnacki. Booman is the man for the job. (Even Bush’s.)
It is possible he may have some lead on the whereabouts of someone who may have information that could prove embarrassing to the US and its allies, but I imagine the purpose of the whole show is just a morale builder for the various operatives, and to maintain US domestic enthusiasm for the “War on Terror.”
Ab-so-fucken-lutely.