Media Matters for America says there are reports Abu Faraj Farj al-Libbi is not the high-ranking al Qaeda kingpin that everyone is making him out to be.

An excerpt:

The Libyan-born al-Libbi was Pakistan's most wanted man for his involvement in two plots to kill Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, according to numerous news reports. Following al-Libbi's May 2 capture in Pakistan, President Bush described al-Libbi as "a top general for [Osama] bin Laden," and "a major facilitator and a chief planner for the al Qaeda network," declaring al-Libbi's arrest a "critical victory in the war on terror." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called al-Libbi a "field general," saying, "[t]his is a truly significant arrest."

But over the past week, doubts about al-Libbi's role in Al Qaeda have surfaced -- doubts that potentially undermine the administration's claims. A May 8 article in London's Sunday Times quoted several sources questioning al-Libbi's importance within Al Qaeda. According to French intelligence investigator and leading expert on terrorism finance Jean-Charles Brisard, "Al-Libbi is just a 'middle-level' leader. ... Pakistan and US authorities have completely overestimated his role and importance. He was never more than a regional facilitator between Al-Qaeda and local Pakistani Islamic groups." The Times also quoted "a senior FBI official" admitting that al-Libbi's "influence and position have been overstated."

Similarly, a May 6 op-ed in the New York Sun (subscription required) by Christopher Brown, a member of the Transitions to Democracy project at the conservative Hudson Institute, lamented "the incorrect assertion that Mr. al-Libbi was the operational chief of the Al Qaeda network." Brown wrote that al-Libbi was not a likely candidate for al Qaeda's third-in-command, noting that Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian terrorist who does appear on the FBI's most wanted list, likely became al Qaeda's "military commander" in 2003. Al-Adel has been implicated in "every major al Qaeda operation," according to Brown; by contrast, al-Libbi is apparently tied to terrorist plots in Pakistan alone, and has "never appeared on America's list of most-wanted terrorists."

The Los Angeles Times quoted a Congressional Research Service analyst saying that "[t]here may be some grade inflation going on" in claims about al-Libbi's (also known as Abu Faraj Farj) importance.

The Sunday Times article also noted that al-Libbi was not on the FBI or State Department terrorism lists: "One American official tried to explain the absence of al-Libbi's name on the wanted list by saying: 'We did not want him to know he was wanted.'"