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A bearded, heavyset man whose face is splotched by a skin disease, al-Libbi first developed ties with bin Laden in the early 1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan. According to a Pakistani intelligence source in Islamabad, al-Libbi became one of bin Laden's few trusted aides. After allegedly organizing the assassination attempts on Musharraf in 2003, al-Libbi fled to Waziristan, a mountainous area along the Afghan border that has long been outside the reach of Pakistani law. After the Pakistani army mounted an offensive in the region in March 2004, al-Libbi and other al-Qaeda fighters, thought to number fewer than 30, left Waziristan and headed for the safety of Pakistan's frontier towns, according to a Pakistani intelligence source. The source says the al-Qaeda fugitives often took shelter in mosques and seminaries along the way. The Pakistani Interior Ministry says al-Libbi was tracked down through monitored telephone intercepts and details extracted from a band of Pakistani militants arrested on Feb. 27 near Mardan, a town 40 miles north of Peshawar. A police source says al-Libbi may have stayed near a Muslim shrine there before his capture.
Can al-Libbi lead his captors closer to his ultimate boss? A senior Pakistani intelligence official says the Pakistanis are sharing details of their interrogation with the U.S. A Pakistani official says al-Libbi has already provided information that led to the arrest last week of more than 20 al-Qaeda suspects in Lahore and Bajaur, a mountainous tribal land near the Afghan border. Hours before the Libyan's arrest was made public last Wednesday, two Pakistani journalists received telephone calls from men identifying themselves as al-Qaeda. The callers asked that news of al-Libbi's arrest be broadcast, hoping to dissuade other operatives from trying to contact him and to alert his associates to flee before U.S. and Pakistani authorities could track them down. When asked how he knew that al-Libbi had been caught, the caller replied, "Because he used to be with us." The U.S. is hoping al-Libbi kept good company. --With reporting by Sayed Talat Hussain/Islamabad, Rahimullah Yusufzai/Peshawar and Elaine Shannon and Adam Zagorin/Washington