While I certainly agree with the general thrust of the analysis, allow me to throw in some comments/analysis of my own:

• I agree with Christopher Brown's take on Rabia as being the head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, but I think it's a mistake to assume that he wasn't a major player simply because he wasn't on the most wanted list. Near as I can tell, in order to get on the list you need at least a US court indictment against you. Ibn Shaykh al-Libi, Abu Zubaydah, Abd Rahim al-Nashiri, Tawfiq Attash Khallad, and all of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's murderous relations likewise didn't make the most wanted list, but it's foolish to assume that because of that they weren't a threat. Zarqawi, if I recall correctly, didn't make the list until 2004, more than 5 years after he had plotted to kill Western tourists in Jordan.

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sorta came out of nowhere too from being a player in the Oplan Bojinka plot (of whom the real mastermind was always characterized as being Ramzi Yousef) to being the head of the al-Qaeda military committee. There were media reports as of December 2001 stating that Saif al-Adel had succeeded Mohammed Atef as the head of the al-Qaeda military committee and he didn't really appear on the radar until the US identified him as the 9/11 mastermind. I would note that Zarqawi is likewise absent from media reports prior to October 2002 (though is mentioned under his real name in connection with the Jordanian trial of the Millennium Plotters), when the head of Germany's international counter-terrorism unit warned that he could be planning an attack on Europe.

• The evidence that the Iranians have Saif al-Adel under some kind of actual detention (like say, the way they hold people like Akbar Ganji) is exceedingly thin. At best, he is under extremely lax house arrest and is able to regularly use the internet given that he has been able to communicate with Arab journalists and publish articles in al-Qaeda e-zines as well as lengthy strategy documents. That is not, to put it bluntly, the way that you treat a man who has devoted the better part of two decades to the mass murder of innocent people if you are serious about putting a stop to his activities and the onus is on Iran to prove that they have done otherwise. As it is, they are now claiming not to be holding any al-Qaeda members and Saif al-Adel has not been extradicted back to Egypt. The fact that the CIA is unwilling to comment publicly on Saif al-Adel's status would seem to suggest that they believe he's still in the game too, as should be the case with any senior al-Qaeda leader until there is compelling evidence to suggest otherwise.

• B. Raman says that Rabia was trained by Midhat Mursi in the fine art of WMD at Darunta camp. I don't have any reason to doubt that, but it also adds another layer between Rabia and the senior al-Qaeda leadership since Mursi is someone that we know from the materials seized in Afghanistan reports directly to al-Zawahiri. Raman's contention that there is no evidence that Rabia was involved in international terrorism outside of Pakistan strikes me as being fairly compelling, which is why I'd been classifying him as the head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, a position that I noted puts him in a rather unique position to screw us over.

• Brisard's contention that Abu Faraj and Abu Hamza were both deputies of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tracks with my own info that I noted at the time of his death concerning of the composition of the ad-hoc military council set up by KSM post-Afghanistan consisting of members of both al-Qaeda and their Pakistani allies to rebuild the terror network and destabilize the Musharraf government. I hadn't heard of Abu Hamza as being described the liaison between Abu Faraj and Ayman al-Zawahiri, though this also confirms my suspicions that Brisard is the "French source" referenced in the recent Time Magazine article I dealt with a few days ago. I think his characterization of the role that Abu Hamza played in the terror network is also quite apt:

He was a high value target, a key al Qaeda member and one of the few who interacted between the al Qaeda historical leaders and foreign cells, and surely not someone we can downgrade to a simple 'ground commander.'

To put it another way, he was the Zarqawi for Pakistan who probably had the blood of countless Pakistani troops and civilians on his hands, which is one of the reasons why putting an end to him was a positive development.

• I agree with Evan Kohlmann that the whole practice of numbering al-Qaeda leaders is rather pointless - I think a much better idea is to go by committee since that's how they seem to organize themselves, but here again that would involve the administration taking more time to educate the American public about the nature of the al-Qaeda threat, something they appear rather want to do.