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Good News!
FYI.
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TR
Baltimore Sun
March 30, 2004
Officials Hopeful Of Al-Qaida Leader's Death
Pakistan radio talk hints at loss of intelligence chief
By Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Intercepted radio conversations indicate al-Qaida's top intelligence chief might have been killed in fighting in Pakistan, intelligence officials said yesterday, but they admitted they cannot produce his body.
The radio transmissions disclosed that a man named Abdullah had been killed and that the death caused a great deal of distress among the al-Qaida forces, a Pakistani intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.
"He was a very important person for al-Qaida," the official said. He added that interrogations of suspected al-Qaida members led the Pakistanis to believe that Abdullah was the group's top intelligence official.
Pakistan's sweep through western tribal areas to root out suspected terrorists resulted in the deaths of 63 suspected militants and arrests of 167 more, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said yesterday.
Another member of Pakistani intelligence said the military was showing photos of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah to captured militants, but none had identified the photo. He said all information was also being shared with U.S. intelligence agencies.
A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States doesn't know whether Abdullah was slain: "We do not have any confirmation on it."
Without a body - and after earlier speculation that al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri was cornered - the officials were cautious about any conclusions, since many al-Qaida leaders use aliases.
Abdullah, who holds an Egyptian passport, was indicted for his alleged involvement in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 231 people, including 12 Americans.
He is on the FBI list of Most Wanted Terrorists and was known to have fled to Pakistan after the 1998 bombings.
Sultan said the army had confirmed Abdullah's death through "independent intelligence sources" but would not say whether it had his body.
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
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