Burqa-clad agents used teargas to catch Al-Qaeda kingpin

ISLAMABAD, Friday (AFP) - Clad in the traditional, all-covering burqa normally worn by Muslim women in conservative areas, the security agents chased the bearded man into a guesthouse in Mardan, a town in northwestern Pakistan.

Minutes earlier the fugitive, alleged Al-Qaeda number three Abu Faraj al-Libbi, had escaped when the motorbike he was riding with another man was ambushed 500 yards away on the main road, the town's deputy superintendent of police Amanullah Khan told AFP.

Khan and other officers rushed to the scene on Monday morning after hearing loud bursts of gunfire from another part of Mardan and presuming that someone was being kidnapped.

"He entered one of the three rooms of a tribal house. Security men opened the first room but found it empty and also another," he said.

The owner of the small guesthouse, Khalid Khan, said he saw al-Libbi and another man being stopped by a grey Suzuki car and then being ordered to surrender at gunpoint, before running off.

"He took shelter in my house and hid himself in a room," he said.

He said several security men, some of whom were hiding in the graveyard wearing burqas, arrived at the scene and surrounded the house. They challenged the suspect to surrender and after locating him hiding in a room they started firing teargas shells, he said.

"The third was locked and noone was answering knocks and calls. Police broke the windows and threw teargas grenades inside the room and the trick worked," added police officer Khan, who is no relation to the guesthouse owner.

"The dense smoke forced him to come out with his hands raised and his head bowed," he said. "We found a cellphone on him and no weapons or anything else," he said.

The police officer said he recognized al-Libbi from wanted pictures that had appeared in Pakistani newspapers.

The security officials then whisked him away from the scene before police had a chance to speak to him, but not before grabbing the phone.

When police later entered the room they discovered tiny shreds of paper, apparently a sheet that had been torn apart in haste by al-Libbi, he said.

"It appeared that there were a few names written on the paper, but it was impossible to read the material as the paper was shredded into pieces," Khan said.

The other suspect arrested with al-Libbi apparently did not join the initial escape attempt. The authorities would not identify him, but one senior official said he was also a key Al-Qaeda figure, with a reward of four million dollars on his head.

Al-Libbi had a five-million-dollar US reward, officials said.

Meanwhile, the next time he saw al-Libbi's face, haggard, his beard matted and his face mottled because of a skin disorder, it was all over the front of Thursday's newspapers.