Strike on Pakistani madrasa won't catch Al Qaeda No 2

ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 (Reuters) Pakistan's destruction of a militant madrasa near the Afghan border means Ayman al-Zawahri has one less place to go, but analysts say any idea the net is closing on al Qaeda's Number Two would be wishful thinking.

''Zawahri's name pops up almost after every such attack. But there has been no sighting of the man in Bajaur at least recently. There is no evidence. It's all speculation,'' said newspaper editor Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on Afghan affairs.

In the deadliest strike mounted by the Pakistan Army against al Qaeda-friendly tribal militants, helicopters fired missiles at a religious school run by a pro-Taliban cleric near Khar, the main town in the Bajaur tribal region.

Some 80 suspected militants were killed, but officials said no ''high-value targets'' were among them, although Zawahri and other al Qaeda members had visited the madrasa in the past.

Whereas intelligence has turned up nothing on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden for more than two years, Zawahri's hunters have had more to go on, but he remains as elusive as ever.

Zawahri has certainly been in the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the border. When it comes to bin Laden, though, people are only guessing that that's where he is.

Even if both men are in the region, they are unlikely to be together. They are too smart for that.

HIT AND MISS CIA agents thought they had a chance of killing Zawahri in Bajaur last January when they got wind of a meeting of militants hosted by Mullah Liaqatullah -- the pro-Taliban cleric who died along with around 80 of his followers in Monday's attack.

American Predator drone aircraft attacked two houses in the village of Damadola, killing a number of villagers.

While it was quickly established that Zawahri had not been at the meeting, the Pakistan government suggested that a handful of al Qaeda operatives were killed, including Abu Obaida al-Misri, even though no bodies were found.

It now seems that information was incorrect, as Pakistani security officials today identified al-Misri as the mastermind of a plot to blow up U S-bound airliners flying from London's Heathrow airport that was foiled in August.

Yusufzai said it was highly unlikely that Zawahri would risk visiting the base of such a well known sympathiser as Liaqatullah, who set up the madrasa, called Zia-ul-Koran or Light of the Koran, in 1999.

The madrasa was known as the headquarters of Tanzeem-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, which in the 1990s ran a vigorous campaign to enforce Taliban values in the region, and later sent thousands of tribesmen to fight U S-led forces when they invaded Afghanistan in late 2001.

The group was outlawed by the government in January 2002.

JOINING THE DOTS The capture of a top al Qaeda planner, Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, in May 2005 could have focused attention on Bajaur, the most northeasterly of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal regions.

''Zawahri's presence had not been reported in this area in the past, but Abu Faraj had lived here in a secluded house incognito for a long time,'' said Mahmood Shah, a former Pakistan security chief in the tribal belt, who retired just before Liby was caught in the northwest town of Mardan.

Intelligence officials say Liby, who was later handed over to the United States, told Pakistani investigators that he had met Zawahri in Bajaur in 2002.

They now think Zawahri is more likely to be just across the border from Bajaur in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, where U S troops are leading the hunt for al Qaeda, the Taliban and fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister during the mujahideen governments of the early 1990s.

But in such a rugged, mountainous region, Zawahri could go in almost any direction.

''If it is possible for him to come to Bajaur, then it should also be possible for him to go to Dir or Mohmand,'' Shah told Reuters, referring to two neighbouring regions on the frontier.

Wherever Zawahri is, it is unlikely he would risk staying long or frequent any one place, analysts said.

REUTERS SP BS1936