According to
ABC News, the CIA has recently blown up another al-Qaeda operative.
Want to guess where in the chain of command this operative was? It couldn't possibly be "third" could it....?
But with the recent capture in northwest Pakistan of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, thought to be al Qaeda's No. 3 man, officials worried al-Yemeni would soon go into hiding, and decided to take action.
. . .
Al-Yemeni was in line to replace al-Libbi, intelligence analysts said.
...which now puts the number of al Qaeda #3s killed somewhere probably around 20. Although if you want to play Lawyerball about it, we don't know if this fellow had actually gotten his promotion processed by HR before his explosion.
Update [2005-5-13 19:10:47 by Nim]:: I just noticed this rather engimatically ominous closing line to the article in question:
Officials said that on two occasions the Predator has been used to attack individuals mistakenly thought to be bin Laden.
Whoopsie!