The New York Times reported, citing intelligence officials, that al-Qaeda’s second-in-command in Iran was acted by Israeli operatives at the behest of the United States.
An NYT report said Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who was driven by Nom de Gere Abu Ahmed Muhammad al-Masri, was shot by two men on a motorcycle in Tehran. He is accused of helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
Masri was seen as a possible successor to Aman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda.
It is not clear what role the United States played in the killing of the Egyptian-born terrorist on August 7, the anniversary of the embassy attack. Operated in Iran for years.
A U.S. official speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity declined to confirm any details about the NYT story or whether there was any U.S. involvement. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden’s widow was killed along with Masri’s daughter, the Times reported.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States, was killed in a US raid in Pakistan in 2011.
Masri has been in “custody” of Iran since 2003 but has been living freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran since 2015, NYT quoted US intelligence officials as saying.
U.S. counterterrorism officials believe Iran, which is also an enemy of the United States, would have allowed it to remain there to take action against U.S. targets, NYT said.
It was not immediately clear if, if any, what effect Masri’s death had on al-Qaeda’s activities. Although it has lost senior leaders in the nearly two decades since the attacks on New York and Washington, Washington, it has maintained active ties from the Middle East to Afghanistan and West Africa.
With Reuters
