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Al-Masry was wanted by the FBI
A prominent US source said that Israeli agents, on the orders of US officials, assassinated the second man in the Al-Qaeda network in the Iranian capital last August, which Tehran denied, confirming that there were no elements of the organization within its territory. .
But what do we know so far about this man?
Abdullah Ahmad al-Masri (57 years old), known as Abu Muhammad al-Masri, is al-Qaeda’s second man and one of the founding leaders of the organization, and one of the most wanted people on the FBI list.
The man, an Egyptian by birth and former professional soccer player, joined Al-Qaeda when it was founded in 1988.
He ran training camps and participated in attacks carried out by the organization against American interests, including helping to train Somali militants who attacked American forces in Mogadishu in 1993.
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Al-Masry is believed to be the mastermind behind the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
He is also suspected of being the mastermind behind the 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people.
The New York Times quotes unidentified US intelligence officials as saying that Al-Masry has been “detained” in Iran since 2003, but has been living freely in an exclusive suburb of Tehran since 2015.
The newspaper said that US counterterrorism officials believe Iran may have allowed him to live there to carry out attacks on US targets.
Iran has long denied harboring al Qaeda operatives, although several prominent leaders of the organization fled from Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Al-Masry was one of the closest associates of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. His daughter Maryam, who is believed to have been killed with him in Tehran, was the widow of Hamza bin Laden, the son of the organization’s former leader, who was killed last year in a US operation on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The New York Times reports that al-Masri was killed with his daughter in a shooting carried out by two gunmen on a motorcycle on August 7, the same day the two American embassies were bombed in 1998.
Users of social media in Iran and Lebanon, as well as the Lebanese MTV channel, shared the news of the operation last August. However, the attack was reported to have claimed the life of a Lebanese history teacher who supported the Hezbollah group, Habib Daoud, and his daughter, Maryam.
Abu Muhammad al-Masri was on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List. And the US State Department has assigned a $ 10 million reward to anyone who provides information leading to their arrest.
“Abu Muhammad al-Masri was one of the most important leaders of Al Qaeda, and the most guilty among them, on the ground,” says Nicholas J. Lewin, a former federal investigator in Manhattan who helped lead the investigations and trials. several prominent leaders and agents of the organization, adding that “his assassination is prohibited. Al-Qaeda is one of its most experienced and influential leaders.”
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Recently, there have been reports that al-Zawahiri died due to his old age.
Al-Masri was seen as a potential successor to the organization’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, 69, who assumed command after bin Laden’s assassination by US Special Forces in Pakistan in 2011, and who is says he died naturally.
And the Reuters news agency quoted counterterrorism expert Ali Soufan as saying that Iran had provided haven for many of Al-Qaeda’s prominent leaders, even though they were assassinated in recent years one by one.
The newspaper adds that with the death of Abu Muhammad al-Masri, the only remaining member of the organization’s Shura Council who possesses operational experience for al-Qaeda is Saif al-Adl, who is believed to be still in Iran.
