Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al Masri, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in the streets of Tehran on August 7, the New York Times reports.
Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, indicted in the US for the 1998 bombings of its embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, was reportedly killed by Israeli agents in a secret operation carried out in Iran.
The Israeli operatives who killed the al Qaeda leader in were acting at the behest of the United States, a New York Times report cited intelligence officials on Friday.
Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu
Muhammad al Masri, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in
the streets of Tehran on August 7, the Times reported.
The killing of Masri, who was seen as a likely successor to
al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, was kept secret
until now, the newspaper said.
It was unclear what, if any, role the United States had in
the killing of the Egyptian-born militant, the Times said. US
authorities had been tracking Masri and other al Qaeda
operatives in Iran for years, it said.
Al Qaeda has not announced his death, Iranian officials have
covered it up and no government has publicly claimed
responsibility, the Times said.
White House declines to confirm
A US official, speaking to Reuters on condition of
anonymity, declined to confirm any details of the Times’ story
or say whether there was any US involvement. The White House
National Security Council did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Masri, one of al Qaeda’s founding leaders, was killed along with his daughter, the widow of former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza bin Laden, the Times reported.
Osama bin Laden was leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist group that carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on
the United States and was killed in a US raid in Pakistan in
2011.
Iran and al Qaeda have long been enemies.
Masri had been in Iran’s “custody” since 2003 but had been
living freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran since 2015, the
Times cited unnamed US intelligence officials as saying.
US counterterrorism officials believe Iran, also a US
enemy, may have let them live there to conduct operations
against US targets, the Times said.
It was not immediately known what, if any, impact Masri’s death has had on al Qaeda’s activities.
Even as it has lost senior leaders in the nearly two decades since the attacks on New York and Washington, it has maintained active affiliates from the Middle East to Afghanistan to West Africa.
Source: Reuters