Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf says his forces' capture of a top al-Qaida suspect has "broken the back" of the terrorist organization.
In an interview with Britain's Financial Times, published Monday, General Musharraf says al-Qaida's command structure was shattered by the arrest earlier this month of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a Libyan who is thought to have been ranked number three in the al-Qaida organization.
President Musharraf says the suspect was al-Qaida's chief of operations, and that without him the terror network is no longer "a cohesive, homogenous body under good command and control." He adds, however, that the arrest did not produce any new clues to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, who is held responsible for the attacks on the United States in 2001.
Pakistan says Abu Faraj al-Libbi led two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate President Musharraf in December 2003, and that he tried to kill Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, before he took office last year.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters.
