May 6, 2005	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 26, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, May 5: Pakistani security officials said on Thursday they hoped the capture of a Libyan accused of being Al Qaeda’s number three and of planning to kill President Pervez Musharraf could lead them to Osama bin Laden. Intelligence agents said they had separately recaptured an air force officer who escaped jail late last year after being sentenced to death in one of the assassination plots masterminded by top terror suspect Abu Faraj Al Libbi.

In another apparent coup, officials said a second militant seized on Monday with Al Libbi was himself a key Al Qaeda figure with a reward tag of $4 million. However, they would not name the other terror suspect, saying it could harm efforts by interrogators to extract information from Al Libbi about Osama.

“The man arrested with Al Libbi is an important Al Qaeda operative, but we cannot disclose his name. We understand the bounty on his head is four million dollars,” a senior government official said. The official declined to give any other details.

Security agents disguised in burqas seized Al Libbi and the other suspect on Monday after a shootout in Mardan.

He was flown by helicopter to Islamabad and was being held in custody at an undisclosed location, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said. Al Libbi was also Pakistan’s most wanted man and could face the death penalty for the two Musharraf assassination attempts in December 2003, which the president has personally accused him of masterminding.

Junior air force official Mushtaq Ahmed, 26, was sentenced to death in November for his role in the bombing of a bridge, which collapsed moments after Gen Musharraf’s convoy had passed through in December 2003.

He escaped jail soon afterwards but was arrested last week on a bus near Islamabad on a tip-off despite having changed his appearance by shaving off his beard, a security official told AFP. Officials said they were not aware of any link between Ahmed’s recapture and the arrest of Al Libbi.

Al Libbi took over Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan after the arrest in March 2003 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the key planner of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and the network’s former third in command, officials said. “He was the man who was heading the cell that plotted attacks on Britain and the United States before the US election last November,” another senior security official said.