Reports coming out of Pakistan today say that Pakistani security forces captured three top al-Qaeda figures inside the Balochistan Province, including a “senior leader” named Younis al-Mauritani and two operatives.
Mauritani was reported to be put in charge of hitting economic targets important to the US, and was said to be planning attacks on oil tankers using explosives-laden speed boats. The US praised the capturing.
Mauritani and the other operatives, Abdul Ghaffar and Messara al-Shami, were captured in a suburb of the Balochistan capital city of Quetta. Though none of the three was on any public list of known global terrorists, officials insisted all three, especially Mauritani, were significant captures.
Though it is netting Pakistan praise now, the operation will likely add to international pressure on the Pakistani government to launch even more operations in and around Quetta, which a number of foreign nations claim is being used as a base of operations for the Afghan Taliban and others.
Hint to Pakistan. If you arrest them all at once, you can't call them all "Al-Qaida #2's" If you spread out the arrests over a few months, then you get to release to the gullible media three separate times that you've arrested an "Al Qaida #2". The media loves the headline, so they'll run it for you every time. "Al Qaida #2 arrested in Pakistan."
I'll say it again- Al-Qaeda must be a HUGE organization to be able to afford to lose and replace so many 'leaders' all the time. They must have an amazing managerial training program to get New Guys up to speed so quickly to take charge the outfit. Instead of killing them, maybe some of our corporations might want to hire them as consultants to figure out our own business leadership problems?