The government on Wednesday announced rewards totalling 1.1 million dollars for information on six wanted terror suspects, including al Qaeda's Libyan planner Abu Faraj Farj, described by Pakistani intelligence as the terror network's new number three.
The government placed advertisements on the front pages of major newspapers, offering rewards of Rs 20 million (345,000 dollars) each for Faraj and Pakistani militant Amjad Hussain Farooqi, and bounties of Rs 10 million to five million rupees (172,000 to 86,000 dollars) each for four other Pakistani suspects.
All six are al Qaeda suspects, believed to have played a role in two December attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf.
The Libyan, listed in the advertisement as Abu Faraj Al Libbi alias Dr Taufeeq, ranks number three in al Qaeda's new generation of operatives, replacing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in March 2003, according to a senior security official.
"This Libyan ranks third in the current al Qaeda hierarchy after Osama bin Laden and his (Egyptian) deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri," the official told AFP.
"Faraj heads the international operational wing of al Qaeda, with the help of an Egyptian accomplice Abu Hamza Rabia," he said.
"Faraj is the man, who has been masterminding and organising terror strikes in Pakistan, and we are looking for him desperately," he said.
The capture of Faraj and Rabia would "deal a telling blow to the network," he added.
A US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) list of most wanted terror suspects offers a bounty of five million dollars for both Rabia and Faraj, the official said.
Rabia is ranked number eight in al Qaeda's hierarcy, according to the official. He could not say who held the rankings in between Faraj and Rabia.
Both men were believed to be still hiding somewhere in Pakistan, another senior security official said.
Faraj, alleged by President Musharraf to be the mastermind of the December 13 and 25 attempts to kill him, has also been described as a personal assistant of bin Laden.
Farooqi, 30, was alleged to be the chief planner of the Musharraf assassination attempts. The President has said the al Qaeda operates in a three-tier system of mastermind, planner and executor, normally recruiting local militants for the roles of planner and executor.
Farooqi has also been indicted over the January 2002 kidnap-murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl's murder, but has never been found.
Security officials say Farooqi is an important link between al Qaeda and fighters from dozens of local militant groups.