Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, Al-Qaeda’s Second In Command Accused In US Embassy Attacks, Killed In Iran

Abu Muhammad al-Masri was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in the streets of Tehran on Aug. 7, the newspaper reported.

Representative Image (PTI)

Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah also known with the war name of Abu Muhammad al-Masri, second in command of the terrorist outfit that was floated by Osama Bin Laden Al-Qaeda, accused to mastermind the attacks of two U.S. embassies in Africa, was killed in a covert operation in Iran by Israeli operatives acting at the behest of the United States in August, as reported by The New York Times on Friday. Abu Muhammad al-Masri was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in the streets of Tehran on Aug. 7, the newspaper reported. According to the newspaper, 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, because it was unclear that the United States had in the killing of the Egyptian-born terrorist, as he was killed by Israeli operatives. Featured in the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, Masri had been indicted in the United States for crimes related to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded hundreds. The FBI offered a bounty of $10 million for information leading to his capture, and as of Friday, his picture was still on the Most Wanted list Neither Al Qaeda has announced the death of the leader second in command nor the Iranian government has taken the any responsibility in the matter, the newspaper reported. Claiming that no Al Qaeda “terrorist” rests on the soil of Iran, the country denied the report of Masri’s death. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement that the United States and Israel sometimes "try to tie Iran to such groups by lying and leaking false information to the media in order to avoid responsibility for the criminal activities of this group and other terrorist groups in the region". The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump's "scare-mongering tactic against Iran has become routine," Khatibzadeh said. According to the newspaper, Masri was killed along with his daughter, the widow of former Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's son, Hamza bin Laden. According to the US intelligence sources, Masri had been in Iran's "custody" since 2003 but had been living freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran since 2015. The newspaper also states that the U.S. counterterrorism officials believe Iran, also a U.S. enemy, may have let him live there to conduct operations against U.S. targets. It was not immediately known what, if any, impact Masri's death has had on Al Qaeda's activities. Even the terrorist outfit has lost many of its senior leaders in 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. Some American defense analysts believe that Masri’s death would sever connections between one of the last original Al-Qaida leaders and the current generation of Islamist militants, who have grown up after bin Laden’s 2011 death. It is also worth mentioning, one of the US intelligence officials on the condition of anonymity declined to confirm the details of the killing of Masri, citing whether there was any U.S. involvement.