As predictable as the cavalry in a John Ford western, so are our buddies in the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Why do I say that? Because it seems whenever our President needs to prove to Americans how well he is doing at keeping us safe from all the evil doers, Pakistan’s military and intelligence services arrive just in the nick of time to capture another top Al Qaeda figure:
A senior al Qaeda commander allegedly tied to the London airplane bomb plot has been arrested in Pakistan, Pakistani intelligence and law enforcement officials have told ABC News. Matiur Rehman, one of the most wanted men in Pakistan, is known to have met with the alleged plot ringleader Rashid Rauf, according to the officials.
Rehman’s capture could provide the most important leads in months to the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s top two leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. Rehman was believed to be in frequent contact with Zawahiri.
Rehman was taken into custody in the southern Punjab city of Bawalpur, the same town where alleged London plot ringleader Rashid Rauf was arrested last week. ABC News saw a copy of the police report on Rehman, with an attached copy of his photo.
How fortuitous is that? And he brings us closer than ever to capturing Osama Bin Laden and his notorious evil second in command henchman, Ayman al Zawahiri. What an astonishing law enforcement effort. Just when things are looking bad for the president and his party, Good triumphs over Evil once more. I’d be even more amazed, if we hadn’t seen this same narrative played out before …
(cont.)
For example, right before the invasion of Iraq, Pakistan captured alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. officials confirmed on Tuesday that another significant al Qaeda figure was captured in the weekend raid in Pakistan that nabbed suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a man who officials say sent cash to lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta through bank accounts in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, was captured … during the raid that netted Mohammed, al Qaeda’s operations chief.
Then who can forget, the stirring capture of top Al Qaeda terror suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani just prior to the Democratic National Convention where John Kerry was to be officially designated as the Democratic opponent to President Bush:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 30 — Pakistan has captured Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who is sought by the United States as a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, officials said Friday.
“This is a big success,” Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said in an unusual late-night announcement on Pakistan’s Geo television network. “More importantly, we are certain of gathering some latest intelligence on al Qaeda from him,” Hayat said in an interview later.
The operation to capture Ghailani, who is on the list of the FBI’s 22 most wanted terrorists, was supervised by agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and coordinated with CIA and FBI officials, according to an official in Punjab state who was present. The official said 240 Punjab policemen conducted the raid on a rented house in a middle-class neighborhood of Gujrat.
Even then, some questioned the curious timing of the announcement of the arrest, after midnight in Pakistan, and only hours before Kerry’s big nomination speech…
Some press reports (including the New Republic) questioned whether the timing of the announcement of Ghailani’s capture was politically motivated at the behest of the Bush administration. The announcement was made just hours before U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry was due to make his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, an event at which a candidate usually receives a significant boost in the polls. Hayyat made the announcement after midnight local time, despite having apparently known Ghailiani’s identity for some days beforehand. Pakistani officials denied there was any such motivation.
No. I’m sure Pakistan would never deliberately time their announcements of captured Al Qaeda suspects to help President Bush. Just as I’m sure that the beating President Bush was taking in the media about Iraq, the Downing Street Memo and his Social Security Elimination Reform Plan had anything to do with their capture of noted al-Qaeda leader and No. 3 Man, Abu Faraj al-Libbi in May, 2005:
WASHINGTON, May 4, 2005 – Calling it “a critical victory in the war on terror,” President Bush today praised the Pakistani government for capturing Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the No. 3 man in Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terror network.
“Al-Libbi was a top general for bin Laden,” Bush said, before beginning a Social Security address to the Latino Coalition Conference here. “He was a major facilitator and a chief planner for the al Qaeda network. His arrest removes a dangerous enemy who was a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom.”
Indeed, I’ll bet that yesterday’s announcement by Pakistan’s security forces that al-Libbi, captured over 15 months ago, was actually the mastermind behind the recently foiled “liquid explosives on airplanes” plot was the merest coincidence:
Pakistani security sources said yesterday that al-Qaida’s “number three” was behind the alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic flights leaving the UK. […]
Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who after Osama bin Laden and the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, is suspected of being al-Qaida’s third in command, has been named by Pakistani security sources as the main planner of the alleged plot, according to Dawn, a daily newspaper. He has also been accused of being in a plot to assassinate Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, and was arrested last year and turned over to the US.
Just as a side note, it’s good to see that Al Qaeda didn’t downgrade al-Libbi’s senior leadership position merely because he had been captured. Not many other terrorist organizations would continue to let a man being held in some secret CIA prison retain his position as the No. 3 guy in their leadership hierarchy. No wonder Osama is able to engender such fierce loyalty from his followers.
But back on topic, let’s not forget Pakistan’s outstanding work earlier this year when they caught their capture 6 months earlier of another “Top Al Qaeda Leader” was announced in May of this year:
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Associated PressKABUL, Afghanistan — A top Al Qaeda leader whose links stretch from Usama bin Laden’s training camps to extremist networks in Europe has been captured in Pakistan, a U.S. law enforcement official confirms for the first time.
Pakistani officials also tell The Associated Press that Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a dual Syrian-Spanish national with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, has been flown out of the country to an unspecified location.
Nasar was captured in a November [2005] sting in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta that left one person dead, the American official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official spoke to the AP late last week.
Jeez. I wonder what trouble Bush was in earlier this Spring? The Dubai Ports deal? The NSA surveillance scandal? Seymour Hersh’s article about Bush’s plans to attack Iran? All of the above?
No matter. Whenever they are needed, Pakistan’s security and intelligence forces are there for our Leader. No greater friend, and all that.
I can’t wait to see which terrorist baddie they’ll serve up capture next.
What’s all the fuss with the no.3 man? Are Al Qaeda like, furiously planning the capture of Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert? </cough>
Seeing how the foiled terror plot didn’t send Americans running to the hardware store for ductape and plastic sheeting they needed to pull another old trick out of the bag. Did they round up all these terrorists years ago and they are keeping them hidden in some prison somewhere and they pull them out of the hat when they need them?
Olbermann did a timeline this week of all the “coincidences” between sinking poll numbers or bad news for this administration and terrorist threats since 9/11. It was fabulous and lengthy.
Yes, this was sort of a little addendum of my own. I keep thinking those pakistani Generals must really be socking away US dollars in their Swiss Bank accounts to be so willing to come help out Der Leader whenever Karl Rove whistles.
Steven – you’ve got to read this great piece by John Newman, about how the ISI essentially financed 9/11. Newman is a highly credible former intelligence official at NSA, and now teaches history at the University of Maryland.
http://911readingroom.org/bib/whole_document.php?article_id=422
Earlier in the piece, Newman demonstrates that the 9/11 Commission’s silence on the key financier is likely due to 1) his probable status as an informant to the UK, 2) his probably status as an informant to the CIA, and 3) his overt links to the ISI, which is so closely tied to the CIA that some claim they are synonymous. (I think that goes too far, but is not a wholly unjustified statement.)
So yeah. Wow. The ISI to the rescue. They SHOULD help, having financed the 9/11 attackers. This is an extraordinarily underwhelming act, given what they did.
Very curious. Here’s the wikipedia article on Saeed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Omar_Saeed_Sheikh
As you couldn’t know, I’m no fan of Wikipedia. It’s as likely to have disinfo as info on topics of importance. It’s a great place for getting leads. I remember in school the same was said of Encyclopedias. Because they’re such tertiary sources, we were always marked down if we sourced something to the encyclopedia rather than primary or secondary sources, primary being files or first hand accounts, secondary sources being books or articles derived from such. Wikipedia is worse than an encyclopedia because there’s no formal review process. Anyone can add a sentence or two and change something important, and the chance of it being fixed at the moment you’re looking at it is unpredictable.
Okay – Wikipedia rant off. I wish I could give negative points to anyone who quotes from or sources Wikipedia on blogs. It’s a cheap cop out, present company VERY MUCH EXCEPTED.
Oh that’s OK. I’ve alway been lazy.
;o)
Here’s another essay about him:
LINK
Better! ;D
Count me among those who believe the Pakistani government has known where Osama and al Zawahiri are for years and could get them at a moment’s notice, but choose not to because doing so might lead to said Pakistani officials’ violent deaths in a revolution by enraged citizens. Give them a lot of money along with tanks to crush protestors and they might change their minds as an election-year gift to Bush.
I’m not sure that would be in Republican’s best interest though. I for one will be yelling at the top of my lungs “Finally, what took you so many damned years?” if they catch Bin Laden just in time for mid-terms. That, and accusing them of playing politics with national defense for the millionth time. God, these people are temperamentally unsuited to governing a democracy.
Could the motive be as simple as losing the US as an ally? After all, if we caught OBL, there goes the war on terror, right?
they would wipe out a lot of al qaeda’s most effective operatives in one fell swoop.
Arresting shepherds, meat packers and beggars and labeling them as top al qaeda operatives just dont cut it.
And while they are at it thy could arrest and extradite that guy living in a luxury home in Pakistan who planned and executed a terrorist atack in India that killed around 250 people.