by Rana Jawad
ISLAMABAD, Aug 13 (AFP) - A Libyan man believed to be the head of Al-Qaeda's terror operations is the top target of Pakistani security forces hunting key operatives of Osama bin Laden's network, officials said Friday.
Abu Faraj Farj, a former personal assistant of bin Laden, masterminded the two December attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf, said a senior intelligence official closely involved in the high-profile Al-Qaeda crackdown.
"Farj was a personal assistant of bin Laden and our information is he is the current top operational chief of the network," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Farj heads Al-Qaeda's clandestine operational apparatus in Pakistan and also controls Al-Qaeda's sleeper cells in other countries to plot terror strikes."
Farj is on the run with an Egyptian cohort, Hamza Rabia, the official said.
"We are looking for them frantically," he said.
Farj and Rabia are on the US Central Intelligence Agency's list of 10 most wanted terror suspects with a five million dollar bounty on their heads, the official said.
Information gleaned from recently arrested key Al-Qaeda suspects has given the security agencies valuable leads as to their whereabouts, he said.
"We are very hopeful we will be able to capture the two masterminds," he said.
Another significant dent in the terror network was made this week when security agencies seized three key Al-Qaeda operatives in eastern city Lahore, northwest city Peshawar and southern commercial hub Karachi.
Turkish national Yilmaz Mehmat alias Khalid, Uzbek national Mansoor, and Pakistani national Siddique Shah alias Mohsin, who is suspected of a key role in the bids to kill Musharraf, were arrested on Sunday and Monday.
They are the latest in a gallery of suspected top operatives of bin Laden's terror network caught in the world's second most populous Muslim nation since mid-July.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told AFP security forces have taken into custody some two dozen Al-Qaeda operatives since July.
"The noose is being tightened around the network," Hayat said.
Mohsin was "one of the important characters in the Musharraf case," the official said.
Mansoor had been hiding near the northwest tribal city of Wana near the Afghan border until Pakistani army assaults sent him fleeing, the official told AFP Thursday.
"He is ... one of the persons active in organising and providing the Uzbek people for fighting against the army in Wana and also for acts of terrorism," he added.
Last month's capture of Tanzanian terror suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, indicted by the US over the 1998 east Africa US embassy bombings, and Pakistani computer whizz Naeem Noor Khan, led to the uncovering of a worldwide Al-Qaeda wing plotting fresh terror strikes in Britain, the US and Pakistan.
Interrogations of the pair and examination of their email records and computer files also led to the arrests of top Al-Qaeda suspects in Britain including alleged kingpin Abu Eisa al Hindi also known as Mohammad Bilal.
Attacks were planned to disrupt US November presidential elections, according to interrogators' accounts of Khan and Ghailani's revelations.
Khan's computer contained detailed surveillance records of key financial institutions in Newark, New York and Washington, triggering terror alerts in the three cities.
Mansoor had arranged Ghailani's marriage to an Uzbek woman, who was with him when he was captured in eastern Pakistan on July 25.