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Afghanistan/South Asia
Al-Libbi in Jug!
2005-05-04
Fox News sez al-Libbi's been jugged in Pakland. Looking for confirmation...


al-Qaida Suspect Arrested in Pakistan
Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a senior al-Qaida suspect wanted in two attempts to assassinate President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has been arrested in Pakistan, the government said Wednesday. Al-Libbi, a native of Libya who authorities say is a close associate of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and acted as al-Qaida's operational chief in Pakistan, was arrested earlier this week, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press. "This is a very important day for us," Ahmed said. He would provide no details on where al-Libbi was captured or where he is being held.

Ahmed said the Pakistani government had been offering a $1 million reward for information leading to al-Libbi's capture, though it was not immediately clear if it would be paid. Officials said earlier Wednesday that they were questioning two foreigners on suspicion of links with al-Qaida. Two security officials said the suspects were captured after a shootout Monday in Mardan, about 30 miles north of Peshawar, capital of the deeply conservative North West Frontier Province. One official said the suspects were in the custody of a Pakistani intelligence agency but declined to give more details, including the suspects' nationalities.

Al-Libbi is accused of masterminding two bombings against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. The military leader escaped injury but 17 others were killed in one of the attacks. He is accused of taking over as al-Qaida's operational chief in Pakistan after the March 1, 2003, arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the terror network's alleged number three. Mohammed was later handed over to U.S. custody and his whereabouts are unknown.

Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, named the Libyan as the chief suspect in the bombings against him. He was among six suspects identified as Pakistan's "Most Wanted Terrorists" in a poster campaign last year. In the poster, he appeared in a photo as a dapper man with a short beard, wearing a Western suit and tie. The other suspects were all Pakistanis, linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim militant group believed tied to al-Qaida.
I'm believed to be tied to my Mom, too...
Al-Libbi is not on the FBI's list of the globe's Most Wanted Terrorists. One of the suspects, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, was killed in a shootout with security forces in southern Pakistan in September. Farooqi, a senior member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was accused of plotting the bombings against Musharraf with al-Libbi and of involvement in the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002.

Pakistan has handed over about 700 al-Qaida suspects to the United States, including Mohammed, Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh and al-Qaida senior operative Abu Zubaydah.
Posted by:Fred

#42  Looks like accelerated depreciation....
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2005-05-04 23:45  

#41  A bit more on him here
Posted by: tipper   2005-05-04 23:22  

#40  Chrenkoff has some nice ''before and after pictures'' of the guy.

The disadvantages of pissing off America--http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/05/disadvantages-of-pissing-off-america.html
Posted by: SwissTex   2005-05-04 23:15  

#39  Handsome chap , if you took away the bad looks , dodgy eyes and poor skin condition , he looks like everybody's passport photo :)
Oooh and good news !
Posted by: MacNails   2005-05-04 21:14  

#38  The islamists thrive on an illusion of muslim superiority, invinvibility and power.
The capture of UBL would be a terrible blow to their dignity. While it would not stop terrorism, it may decrease the number of willing followers.

Every few months the press goes gaga whenever Musharraf hands over another #3.
He has to be made to start draining the terror swamp.
Posted by: john   2005-05-04 20:53  

#37  In the Business biz they call it, ''opportunity for rapid advancement.'' Lots of #4s are ambitious to move up a level... do let's continue helping them out.
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-05-04 20:45  

#36  And that means ... what, John?

While it would be satisfying to capture OBL, doing so won't really have all that much of an impact on the Islamacist movement that has been seeded for decades with Wahabist money and Salafist hate. And it won't change the repression, economic poverty and lack of basic education that plagues most of the Islamic countries, which in turn makes Islamacism attractive to some/many of their people.

I think we all get your point here and in other posts about OBL, but it doesn't seem like an impressive point to me. We'll unravel this network while others labor to extend it and over time we'll see who has the greater momentum and endurance.
Posted by: too true   2005-05-04 20:30  

#35  He is the latest in a long line of ''Al Qaeda #3''s

Don't forget
Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubeida, Yassir al-Jaziri, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani

Lot more where he came from

UBL is no closer to being captured
Posted by: john   2005-05-04 20:21  

#34  Looks like he needs a good shave... with a pair of wide-lip pliers.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2005-05-04 20:03  

#33  Libi has a skin condition, there's no make up there folks. Not a handsome fella, but a dangerous one best taken off the playing field.
Posted by: H8_UBL   2005-05-04 19:23  

#32  Now that is a capital idea!

Forget the panties -- Place him in the same cell with Michael Jackson!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-05-04 18:28  

#31  Other reports have mentioned psoriasis. This looks like a natural skin problem to me. I have seen quite a few similar in Australian Aboriginal people, mostly women. My guess would be his parents had widely different skin pigmentation.
Posted by: Grunter   2005-05-04 17:41  

#30  Squeeze him and then squeeze him some more.
Posted by: John Q. Citizen   2005-05-04 17:27  

#29  In case anyone needs any motivation in asking this guy a few questions.
Posted by: Matt   2005-05-04 17:20  

#28  TW: The splotches are what his skin color should be, but he hasn't enough melanin to tan the rest. And he's been losing his hair, and his eyes slant oddly.

I think that's correct. The guy was trying to blend in by coloring his skin using on one of those tan-in-a-bottle formulas. A Libyan should have the skin complexion of an Italian - Pakistanis are usually brown-skinned. The splotches are probably from the Pakistani police washing the tanning solution off to verify his ethnicity.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-05-04 17:12  

#27  With a face like that, there is no need to bring out Khalid's Shirt of Shame.
Posted by: Gleaper Cleregum9549   2005-05-04 16:58  

#26  Looks like advanced vitiligo. Lucky for him, he has been living in a cave these past few years and won't ever see sunshine again.
Posted by: ed   2005-05-04 15:43  

#25  I hope he's on the midnight flight to Diego Garcia where the best interrogation methods will be used. Torture isn't necessary to breakdown this pussy and have him babbling about his associates
Posted by: sea cruise   2005-05-04 15:41  

#24  Not enough sun block? Too much sun block? Mis-applied sunblock? Ir was it a chemical peel gone horribly wrong? I'm just dyin to know!
Posted by: remoteman   2005-05-04 15:38  

#23  Those splotches look like burns. Premature explosion Occupational accident?
Posted by: BH   2005-05-04 15:28  

#22  He's Libyan, Penguin. The splotches are what his skin color should be, but he hasn't enough melanin to tan the rest. And he's been losing his hair, and his eyes slant oddly. I'd say he wasn't a favourite with the girls ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-05-04 15:26  

#21  He's getting ready for his Sammy-style dental exam.
Posted by: Seafarious   2005-05-04 15:24  

#20  maybe a pagliacci clown....
Posted by: Frank G   2005-05-04 15:16  

#19  Throw some black velvet behind him and he'd look like one of those Sad Clown paintings.
Posted by: tu3031   2005-05-04 15:10  

#18  he fell.several times.
Posted by: Frank G   2005-05-04 15:07  

#17  What's going on with his face? He has splotches under his eyes that look like Michael Jackson in transition.
Posted by: Penguin   2005-05-04 14:57  

#16  Well I suppose it depends on the solidity of UCA's warrant, our extradition treaty with UCA, etc. If send a guy to UCA on a more or less made up warrant, its pretty clear we're using UCA. If UCA has the guy, there aint nothing for us to do - nobody can ask us to snatch the guy from UCA to protect him from torture. So it DOES matter.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2005-05-04 14:22  

#15  But what's the difference. If unscrupulous country A has a warrant for Bob Jihadi, and we hand them over, how's that different than if UCA caught him in the first place?

Not that it matters, as far as I'M concerned. Terrorists have no rights.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-05-04 14:18  

#14  I think it'll be short and sweet. Wouldn't want the names of any friendly ISI guys to come out in questioning, would we? Do they have crossfires in Pakland?
Posted by: Chuck Simmins   2005-05-04 14:18  

#13  His face look like he has been under "intense questioning."
Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom   2005-05-04 2:17:55 PM  

#12  ah RC, thats renditition. When we send somebody under OUR custody to the hands of some country with less scruples. But in this case he was CAUGHT in Pakistan, BY the Pakistanis. No rendition. No problem. And as others have said, the Pakis have plenty to ask him about.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2005-05-04 13:11  

#11  Looks like Perv might've already met with him...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20050504/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_terror_arrests
Posted by: tu3031   2005-05-04 12:56  

#10  Musharef was seen browsing the needle-nose pliers display at the Islamabad Sears...though it could just be a coincidence.
Posted by: Justrand   2005-05-04 12:27  

#9  Ahhh. Another brave Islamist who has no problems sending young men and women (even handicaped) to die for the cause, yet they somehow escape death in thier religious fever, and just get caught. Which, if the Ted Kennedy's of the world are right, this is worse than death, with all the unaccounted panties in the world.
Posted by: plainslow   2005-05-04 12:17  

#8  Since he is alleged to have been behind two assassination attempts on Musharef, I suspect that the Paki interrogation of this guy will be considerably more intense than ours would have been. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Posted by: RWV   2005-05-04 11:33  

#7  I love controversies :-)

Hope his ticker holds out long enough for it to be a reallllllly painful interrogation
Posted by: Frank G   2005-05-04 11:15  

#6  Given controversy on US interrogation techniques, better to let Pakis have a nice long shot at him?

Eh? I thought letting other people, with fewer scruples, interrogate was one of the ''controversies''.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-05-04 10:32  

#5  1. If it was a tip, that means the coppers are getting cooperation even up in NWFP. At least some locals arent so afraid of the jihadis anymore. OR those locals have been well paid off by our side.

2. Pakis get to squeeeze him first? Given controversy on US interrogation techniques, better to let Pakis have a nice long shot at him?

3. Noose tightening on OBL?
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2005-05-04 10:15  

#4  Additional One of the officials said 11 more terror suspects - including three Uzbeks, an Afghan and seven Pakistanis - were arrests before dawn Wednesday in the Bajor tribal region. The official would not say what prompted authorities to launch the raid or whether it was linked to al-Libbi's capture.
The intelligence officials said authorities were led to al-Libbi's hideout by a tip that foreigners had been spotted in the area. The suspect was held overnight at a military facility in Mardan, then transferred by helicopter to the capital, Islamabad, the officials said.
Posted by: Steve   2005-05-04 9:48:23 AM  

#3  looks like the Pakis have been busy little beavers up in NWFP.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2005-05-04 09:34  

#2  He's got Libbi Libbi Libbi
On his mugshot mugshot mugshot
Posted by: Seafarious   2005-05-04 08:53  

#1  On Beeb too.. get the panties ready..
Posted by: Howard UK   2005-05-04 08:16  

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