The fingerprints of Al Qaeda's operations commander Saif al Adal were all over the assault on the important Pakistani Mehran naval air base in Karachi, which began Sunday night, May 22 and ended only after 17 hours of fierce combat,DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report. The attack hit a shared strategic Pakistani-US-Chinese installation, destroying US surveillance aircraft. It also impaired Pakistani reconnaissance capabilities against al Qaeda's strongholds in North Waziristan and its watch over the Arabian Sea dividing Pakistan from India.