Al-Qaida's Number 3 Believed To Be The Brain Behind Foiled Terror Plot In The U.K.
Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent Islamabad, Pakistan (AHN) - A newspaper in Pakistan on Wednesday, quoting intelligence sources, said al-Qaeda's No. 3 man was the brain behind the foiled attempt to blow up trans-Atlantic flights bound for the U.S. last week. The Pakistani publication Dawn quoting a source said,"It is not Osama bin Laden and it's not Aiman Al Zawahiri, but someone close to the rank of Abu Faraj Al-Libbi. It is an al-Qaida connection." The unnamed source adds, "It is the top hierarchy." It identified Abu Faraj Al-Libbi, al-Qaeda's third highest operative, who was arrested in Mardan in May 2005 after being linked to an assassination attempt against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. According to the intelligence source, the plan to blow up U.S.-bound panes in mid-flight was parallel in pattern to the plot to kill Musharraf. There was a mastermind, there was a planner and there were the executioners," he said. He said al-Qaida was established in London thru Rashid Rauf, who was arrested by the Pakistani authorities who eventually confessed of the plan. The source said those involved in the bombings of the airplanes were still in the planning stage. "There were not in the execution stage," the source adds. Rauf arrived in London in 1981, when he was a one-year old. He returned to Pakistan in 2002 where he established his connection with the terror |
