Will The Real Al Qaeda No. 3 Please Stand Up?
By Sherrie Gossett CNSNews.com Staff Writer December 16, 2005 (CNSNews.com) — The reported killing of a senior al Qaeda operative by a CIA-launched missile in Pakistan on Dec. 1 has sparked debate among terrorism experts over the true identity of the target and the accuracy of numerical rankings that the Pentagon and White House have attached to other captured or killed terrorists. Some say the rankings represent public relations run amok, while others say they prove that the U.S. continues to rely on faulty Pakistani intelligence. On Dec. 3, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told reporters that Abu Hamza Rabia had been killed in an explosion two days earlier. An aide to Musharraf told reporters that Rabia was “very important in al Qaeda, maybe number three or five” in the terror group’s hierarchy. Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao added that Rabia’s death was a “big blow to al Qaeda.” Several American news organizations, including the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times,
