Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a senior Al-Qaeda bomb maker and terrorist coordinator, was killed two years ago in a United States operation in Yemen, the White House announced on Thursday 10th October 2019.
Al-Asiri had been in hiding in Yemen for years and was the repeated target of U.S. drone strikes. The U.S. mistakenly believed they had killed him in a 2011 strike. They later targeted a man they believed was al-Asiri in a May 2012 strike, but he turned out to be another Al-Qaeda leader.
In a statement released by the White House, al-Asiri was killed in 2017 during a US counter-terrorism operation in Yemen. U.S. officials were not able to confirm his death due to insufficient evidence at the time, though they were confident he had been killed.
Al-Asiri is confirmed to have orchestrated the attempted 2009 bombing of a passenger jet flying from Amsterdam to Detroit in which a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to set off an underwear bomb.
The announcement also confirmed that al-Asiri was the mastermind behind the bomb used in a printer cartridge plot which was disrupted in 2010.
The U.S. added him to its terrorism most wanted terrorist list in 2011 after he was believed to be the key suspect in a 2010 Al-Qaeda parcel bomb plot against the United States.
