Al-Qaida has 'lost capability to orchestrate attacks'

Al-Qaida has lost its ability to launch co-ordinated attacks following the arrests in Pakistan of several top figures, a government minister said today.

“We have broken the back of al-Qaida and now they have lost the capability to launch any organised operations. We have put a dent in them,” Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said.

He cited the arrests of senior al-Qaida leaders such as Abu Faraj al-Libbi, reputed to be al-Qaida’s No. 3 leader, who was captured earlier this month by Pakistani security forces.

Sherpao also denied media reports that a senior al-Qaida operative Haitham al-Yemeni was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft in Pakistani territory.

“No such incident has happened on Pakistani soil. We have not received any report about this incident,” Sherpao told reporters in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Pakistan is an ally of the US in the war against terrorism. However, Islamabad has repeatedly denied allowing US forces to enter the country to track down al-Qaida and Taliban militants, fearing a backlash from hard-line Islamic groups in the country.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al-Qaida suspects and many of them have been handed over to US officials, including al-Qaida’s then-No. 3 leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was arrested in March 2003 during a raid in Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad. Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah, two other alleged al-Qaida leaders, were also arrested in Pakistan.