Zawahiri spotted near Quetta

Jasmeen Manzoor, Washington Times:

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source.

The Egyptian-born radical is a master of disguise, a meticulous planner and the deadliest of terrorists. Yet Pakistani intelligence sources say he roams openly and with impunity in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Predators continue to strike at a variety of key terror targets in that area, our source tells us that the CIA and other intelligence agencies cannot get al-Zawahiri, though they usually know for the most part where he is.

Al-Zawahiri's recent movements can be tracked with some specificity. He was positively identified in the North Waziristan Agency of Pakistan in June 2008, and the locations pinpointed where he conducted high-level meetings.

Subsequent U.S. drone attacks forced him to move to South Waziristan Agency in August 2008. Thereafter he moved south to Baluchistan and crossed into Afghanistan from the border city of Zhob. He returned to the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) sometime in December or January. A well-placed source in Pakistan's intelligence service tells me that he may have relocated recently to somewhere outside of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.

...

There is more. He has good reason to stay on the move, but if Pakistan can impose counterinsurgency operations on the area their check points would eventually stop him and lead to his capture. People like Zawahiri are most vulnerable when the counter insurgents have an adequate force to space ratio that makes it difficult for the enemy to move without detection even if they are in a berqa.

The current Pakistan operation may disrupt his travel plans.