ISLAMABAD, (AFP) - Pakistan is claiming it has dealt Al-Qaeda a crushing blow after the killing of a top official said to have masterminded two attempts on President Pervez Musharraf`s life.
Amjad Farooqi was also a key suspect in the kidnap-murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl and had helped hide the alleged chief plotter of the September 11 attacks in the US, security officials said.
He was shot dead during a two-hour gunbattle at his hideout on Sunday morning, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said.
"Farooqi`s elimination is a crushing blow to the Al-Qaeda network in Pakistan because he was the man who had been providing Al-Qaeda terrorists with the manpower to carry out attacks," a senior security official told AFP.
Farooqi was closely associated with a Libyan militant called Abu Faraj Farj who has been identified as Al-Qaeda`s new operations chief, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Farooqi, 30, had been indicted over the murder in early 2002 of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl. He was one of four men who kidnapped Pearl in Karachi on January 25 and allegedly recruited the trio who slit his throat around a week later, according to investigators.
Musharraf has named Farooqi as the mastermind of attempts to kill him last December but the militant had evaded a massive nationwide manhunt for nine months.
A mobile phone call intercepted by intelligence agencies earlier this month led them to his new hideout in the town of Nawabshah 270 kilometers (169 miles) north of Karachi, said Karachi`s chief police investigator Fayyaz Leghari.
"He perhaps selected Nawabshah because like Karachi, it has a multi-ethnic population but is not well known for any terrorist activities," he said.
Paramilitary police surrounding his hideout were met with a hail of automatic gunfire from Farooqi and his accomplices.
In the ensuing firefight Farooqi cried out "I prefer death!" according to a security official involved in the raid.
Three other militants were arrested and were described by Rashid as "very important wanted terrorists". They were being interrogated in Karachi on Monday, the minister said.
"One or two of them carry a price tag on their head," Leghari said.
Farooqi`s body was undergoing DNA tests in Karachi, he added.
Farooqi had undergone training in Afghanistan in 1992 with the Pakistani militant organisation Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami.
He had fought alongside the hardline Taliban militia and developed close contacts with Osama bin Laden and top Al-Qaeda leaders in the late 1990s when the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan and sheltered the terror network there.
Leghari said Farooqi had helped hide Khalid Sheikh Mohammad -- Al-Qaeda`s number three and the alleged chief planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks -- in Karachi before Mohammad was arrested near Islamabad in March last year.
He was said to be "very close" to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born militant convicted of plotting Pearl`s abduction and murder.
Musharraf, who threw his support behind the US "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks, said his month he was making significant inroads into breaking the Al-Qaeda network -- including the arrest of some 600 suspects.