Key Al Qaeda Strategist Gains Priority in Terrorism Dragnet

As the hunt for Al Qaeda leaders expands beyond Afghanistan, authorities confirmed Tuesday that they are pursuing one man as intensely as Osama bin Laden himself--an elusive Palestinian who they believe has been entrusted with keeping the terrorist organization’s global network of cells alive and operational.

Authorities are also aggressively pursuing the theory that Abu Zubeida, whose real name is Zain Al-Abidin Mohammed Husain, is the “operational link” connecting Bin Laden and others who conceived the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with the hijackers who carried them out.

Abu Zubeida, thought to be about 30, could well be at Bin Laden’s side as he tries to elude a global dragnet. But unlike Bin Laden and his aide Ayman Zawahiri, whose movements are limited by their high profiles, Abu Zubeida may have slipped out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan or almost anywhere else to activate new plots and try to regroup Al Qaeda forces, authorities fear.

Abu Zubeida’s role makes him a higher priority than even Zawahiri, who authorities say is more of a theoretician. Since the reported death in November of Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubeida is believed to have taken on the added role of Al Qaeda’s chief military strategist, according to U.S. officials and counterterrorism experts.

Abu Zubeida has well-established personal ties to many of the Al Qaeda cell leaders and soldiers in far-flung posts, whom he cultivated as the group’s longtime liaison to terrorists worldwide and as overseer of training camps in Afghanistan. Those Al Qaeda supporters, officials said, could provide Abu Zubeida with harbor, financial and logistical support and manpower needed to keep Al Qaeda going, even if Bin Laden is killed or caught.

Authorities cite a copy of Al Qaeda’s plan for succession of power, recently smuggled out of Afghanistan, which states that certain leaders must flee as opposing forces are closing in, to ensure that the terrorist network has the leadership it needs to live and fight another day.

“Zubeida is the director of external affairs for Al Qaeda,” said one Bush administration official who confirmed the intensive manhunt for Abu Zubeida. “As part of that, he ran the camp infrastructure, he brought [terrorists] in, trained them and got them back to their country of origin or the country Al Qaeda wanted to place them in.

“He is a very important cog in the machinery and certainly . . . after Bin Laden is gone, would be someone who would take over,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He is someone we are extremely interested in.”

Abu Zubeida is the man believed responsible for putting Bin Laden’s plans into action, officials said. He has played a direct role in orchestrating most, if not all, of the group’s recent attacks, they added. Those include the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, which killed 224 people, and plots to blow up Los Angeles International Airport and tourist sites in Jordan.

Abu Zubeida also has been Al Qaeda’s global emissary, slipping undetected from one country to another. Of those in Bin Laden’s inner circle, “he is the one who travels,” said one senior counterterrorism official from the Clinton administration. “He’s good at that stuff--traveling around the world with fake names, assumed passports, and he is very good at disguise. I don’t think anyone knows where he is, even though everyone would love to find him.”

Abu Zubeida has used at least 37 aliases and accompanying fake passports and identification documents from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and perhaps Morocco, according to a confidential U.S. investigative document obtained by The Times.

So little is known about Abu Zubeida that even his country of origin and his age are in question. Some identity documents indicate he was born in Saudi Arabia, but authorities say he is a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip. Few photos of him exist, and it is unclear how he became such an important confidant of Bin Laden.

Trips to Europe, Africa

For years, Abu Zubeida operated an Al Qaeda safe house in Peshawar, Pakistan, and has frequently moved between that country and Afghanistan, often going underground for long periods only to resurface and resume his role as an Al Qaeda chieftain, said one FBI counterterrorism agent.

“He’s probably in Pakistan,” the agent said. “He prefers it there.”

Abu Zubeida also has traveled extensively to Europe, Asia and Africa to orchestrate and activate terrorist plots, maintain liaisons with terror cells and screen would-be guerrillas for training, according to the FBI and other U.S. counterterrorism authorities.

Abu Zubeida was never charged in the embassy bombings or the millennium plots against LAX and the Jordanian tourist sites, although he has been linked to them by intelligence reports, law enforcement investigations and the testimony of Al Qaeda turncoats, including convicted millennium plotter Ahmed Ressam. Authorities believe he also played a role in the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen in October 2000, which killed 17 soldiers, as well as the foiled suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris last year.

As for the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities believe Abu Zubeida acted as an intermediary between Bin Laden and those directly involved in the plot, including the hijackers.

“He is an implementer; he takes the orders from Bin Laden and translates them into operational plans and implements them,” said Vince Cannistraro, former counter-terrorism chief for the CIA, who is familiar with the investigation.

Now Abu Zubeida “is activating the worldwide networks on behalf of Bin Laden,” said Cannistraro, citing CIA sources. “He is the guy who is trying to implement the next terrorist operation . . . but they don’t know where he is.

“He may be in [Afghanistan] but he may be outside,” added Cannistraro. “What they do know is that money is flowing and that the cells seem to be moving and active and that the worldwide network reported back to him and through him to Bin Laden. So Abu Zubeida is perhaps the most important guy out there.”

Search Dates to 1998

In recent weeks, Pakistan’s government turned over to the U.S. military a top aide to Abu Zubeida, Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, who allegedly ran Al Qaeda’s Khalden training camp under Abu Zubeida’s supervision. Authorities hope that interrogations of Al-Libi and other Al Qaeda detainees might shed more light on what role Abu Zubeida played in the Sept. 11 attacks, and about his whereabouts.

At times, Abu Zubeida has traveled as a honey salesman and in other disguises, to such disparate locations as Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of Africa where Al Qaeda is strong, including Sudan and Somalia.

As “emir” of Khalden and about five other camps, Abu Zubeida met with many members of Al Qaeda cells from around the world and has maintained relationships with them, the FBI agent said.

Although the hunt for Abu Zubeida has intensified significantly, it is not new. High-level counter-terrorism officials in the Clinton and Bush administrations confirm that they have been searching for him since at least 1998, after the embassy bombings.

In the spring of 2000, the Clinton administration dispatched a team of high-ranking counterterrorism authorities to Sudan to investigate a thriving Al Qaeda cell and to apprehend Abu Zubeida, who intelligence reports had indicated was there for meetings.

“We were literally hours behind him . . . and he slipped through our fingers,” recalled one former State Department counterterrorism official involved in the operation.

Somehow, the official said, Abu Zubeida “got tipped off to us. He is a very crafty fellow.”

The mission was highly classified, and authorities would not discuss in detail what they believe Abu Zubeida was doing in Sudan. “He was just floating through; ‘transiting’ is what we call it,” the official said. “You can guess what he was doing--planning.”

Abu Zubeida was not listed by President Bush in October as one of the 22 most-wanted terrorists. Some authorities attributed that omission to Abu Zubeida’s ability to fly below the radar. And now, as coalition forces seek Bin Laden and Zawahiri, that low profile may ultimately work to Abu Zubeida’s advantage.

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Times staff writer William C. Rempel in Los Angeles contributed to this report.