WASHINGTON, May 5: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that Pakistan deserves most of the credit for arresting Al Qaeda’s third-ranking leader Abu Faraj Al Libbi. She described Al Libbi as an ‘important field general’ and said that while US forces have been “cooperating in the region, Pakistan deserved most of the credit.”

Talking to journalists after a Wednesday meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer here, Ms Rice said, “The Pakistanis are to be congratulated for the hard work that they did. We have been cooperating with them, but the Pakistanis have been really stalwart in the war on terrorism.”

“I can tell you that this is somebody that we watched a lot every single day,” said Ms Rice when a reporter asked if Al Libbi was so important why he was not listed on the US rewards list for suspected terrorists.

President Bush’s National Security Adviser House Stephen J. Hadley described the arrest as ‘a real big deal.’ He said Libbi was not only doing operations; “he was a facilitator, he was into finance, he was into administration.” US forces played a role in the Al Libbi capture, Mr Hadley told journalists at the White House.