The man whisked off the streets of Tripoli, Libya, Saturday was among the top remaining leaders of al Qaeda, an elusive confidante of – and computer expert for – Osama bin Laden, as well as an alleged conspirator in the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings.
Anas al Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai’I, has over the years been reported as killed, captured or living in Iran. The U.S. has known he’s been back in his native Libya for more than two years, the latest stop on a journey that has taken him from Tripoli to Sudan, where he met bin Laden, to England, Kenya, Afghanistan and Iran before returning to Libya in the dying days of the regime of former leader Moammar Gadhafi — where he lost his son in the civil war that led to Gadhafi’s ouster and death.
