Ahmad Hassan (Abu al-Khayr al-Masri), overall deputy to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, reportedly killed by a drone strike in Syria.
Photos posted of social media show a car with a massive hole in its roof after the deputy to the terror group's leader was reportedly targeted by a US drone.
Also known as Ahmad Hasan alias Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, served as a number two in command of Al-Qaeda terror group after its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The 59-year-old Egyptian's death was reported by a number of experts on Syria and terrorism, including Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute.
Social media photos suggest he was killed on Sunday as he travelled in a car. The photos also show a KIA car on the side of the road with a massive damaged roof. The footage also shows authorities having difficult removing a body from the vehicle's demolished interior.
Two people were said to have been killed in the U.S. drone attack in al-Mastouma in Syria's northern Idlib province.
Abu Khayr al-Masri, was reportedly married to a daughter of Osama bin Laden and was allegedly responsible for a number of terror attacks, including the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
According to Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based writer on Islamic groups, Masri’s death will be a serious blow to al-Qaeda.
“His death is no less significant than that of Bin Laden [who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan in May 2011],” Hashimi told the Guardian. “He was the ideological leader of the group in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and the number two in the organisation overall.”
