General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, has claimed this month's arrest of a senior al-Qaeda operative has helped to "break the back" of the terrorist organisation, severing the links between the central command and members on the ground.

In his first interview since the arrest this month of Abu Faraj al-Liby, al-Qaeda's alleged number three, Gen Musharraf said: "We have broken their back. They cease to exist as a cohesive, homogenous body under good command and control, vertical and horizontal."