By Israeli agents functioning at the command of yankee officers dead al-Qaida’s deputy in August, in a very brazen shooting in Iran’s capital, per a senior U.S. official.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, whose nom Delaware guerre was Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed at the side of his female offspring, Maryam, as they were driving in a chic national capital neighborhood, per the official, UN agency spoke on the condition of namelessness as a result of the matter’s sensitivity.
The operation, initial reportable Friday by the the big apple Times, any slims the leadership ranks of foreign terrorist organization and removes the suspect mastermind of the 1998 bombings of 2 U.S. embassies in geographic area that killed over two hundred individuals.
Al-Qaida has not formally acknowledged Masri’s death, and no country has claimed responsibility. The Israelis coordinated the operation with the CIA, per the official. The CIA, FBI and Pentagon declined to comment, and also the White House didn’t reply to a call for participation for comment. The Israeli prime minister’s workplace and intelligence ministry conjointly declined to comment.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a press release weekday denying the report and also the presence of any terrorist organization members in Islamic Republic of Iran, accusive the us and Israel of making an attempt “to draw a link between Islamic Republic of Iran and such teams through falsification and also the run of made-up data to the media.”
A report regarding Masri’s death was announce and quickly deleted from a non-public foreign terrorist organization forum last month, per web site Intelligence cluster, that tracks political orientation on-line. foreign terrorist organization has repeatedly didn’t acknowledge the deaths of its leaders within the past 2 years, fearful that to try and do therefore would betray its weakness, web site founder Rita Katz aforesaid.
Iran, a Mohammedan theocracy whose ideology is at odds therewith of Sunni Islamic teams like foreign terrorist organization, has long denied it’s harbored foreign terrorist organization, tho’ prime leaders like Masri fled from Asian nation once the 2001 terrorist attacks and sought-after refuge there. The Washington Post initial reportable in 2003 that Masri was in Islamic Republic of Iran.
After the Aug. seven attack on Masri, Islamic Republic of Iran concocted a canopy story. Its official press agency Fars reportable that a Lebanese man, Habib Daoud, and his female offspring, Maryam, were shot and killed by a rider on a bike, per web site. alternative Iranian news retailers aforesaid the person was a history academician.
In fact Habib Daoud was Masri, 57, AN Egyptian-born former skilled athlete UN agency became one in every of Osama bin Laden’s most trusty lieutenants.
Masri joined foreign terrorist organization at its origination in 1988, having fought the Soviets in Asian nation. He ran al-Qaida’s terrorist coaching camps and contend a job within the group’s mass-casualty attacks against Americans, as well as serving to train the Somali terrorists UN agency attacked U.S. forces in Mogadiscio in 1993.
He was still on the FBI’s best Terrorists list as of weekday, and also the State Department offered a souvenir of up to $10 million for data resulting in his arrest.
“Abu Muhammad al-Masri was among the foremost necessary – and censurable – foreign terrorist organization leaders on the earth,” aforesaid St. Nicholas J. Lewin, a former federal prosecuting attorney in Manhattan UN agency helped lead the investigation and prosecution of many of the group’s senior leaders and operatives. “His death deprives foreign terrorist organization of 1 of its most skilled and revered leaders.”
Masri’s female offspring, Maryam, married bin Laden’s son, Hamza Osama bin Laden, UN agency was being brushed for a leadership role and had conjointly lived in Islamic Republic of Iran. He was killed last year in a very U.S. strategy operation within the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
While it’d appear strange that Islamic Republic of Iran would harbor senior foreign terrorist organization leaders, Islamic Republic of Iran within the past had power-assisted Sunni terror teams like terrorist organization and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Osama Osama bin Laden once contemplated Islamic Republic of Iran and foreign terrorist organization teaming up against the West, strategy skilled Ali Soufan wrote in a commentary for the Combating act of terrorism Center at West Point.
Many of al-Qaida’s senior commanders are secure in Islamic Republic of Iran, tho’ one by one, they need been killed in recent years. With Masri’s death, the sole remaining member of foreign terrorist organization’s shura council – its core leadership – with operational al-Qaida terrorist expertise is Saif al-Adel, UN agency is believed still to be in Islamic Republic of Iran.
Al-Qaida’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, UN agency assumed the mantle once the 2011 killing of Osama Osama bin Laden by U.S. Special Forces in West Pakistan, is sixty nine and indisposed.
Al-Masri’s death leaves restricted decisions for foreign terrorist organization to pick out a replacement ruler with the legitimacy of a Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri,” Soufan aforesaid in AN email. Adel could be a prime competitor, he said, however noted that “could be moot as a result of his appointment may leave foreign terrorist organization hospitable accusations that it’s acting as a puppet of the Iranian regime, whether or not or not these claims have any basis in point of fact.”
