Emerging reports cited by international media outlets indicate that Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, blamed for facilitating and masterminding the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa was killed in Iran in August by Israeli operatives.
According to the reports, acting at the behest of the United States, two Israeli operatives on a motorcycle gunned down Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah alias Abu Muhammad al-Masri in the streets of Tehran on Aug. 7.
The killing of al-Masri is a huge blow to the Al-Qaeda networks citing he was the likely successor to Al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Corresponding reports indicate that al-Masri, who has long been on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Most Wanted Terrorists list, had been killed in the Pasdaran area of Tehran.
The U.S. authorities had been tracking Masri, the Egyptian-born militant and other Al-Qaeda operatives in Iran for years. Al Qaeda has so far remained mute on his death while on the other hand, Iran on Saturday denied the report, saying there were no Al-Qaeda “terrorists” on its soil.
Further reports indicate that al-Masri, one of Al-Qaeda’s founding leaders, was killed along with his daughter. She was the widow of former Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s son.
The report of al-Masri’s killing comes weeks after the killing of two other senior Al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan by local security forces.
