Israeli agents shot and killed Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Al Qaeda's second-highest leader, three months ago on the streets of Tehran at the behest of the U.S., officials said, but no one — Iran, Al Qaeda, the U.S. or Israel — has publicly acknowledged the killing, The New York Times reported Friday.
The 58-year-old, whose real name was Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, was one of Al Qaeda’s founding members and was next in line to lead the terrorist organization after current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. He was accused of being one of the masterminds of the deadly 1998 attacks on American embassies in Africa.
Assassins reportedly gunned down al-Masri and his daughter, Miriam, on Aug. 7. Miriam was the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden.
"For reasons that are still obscure, Al Qaeda has not announced the death of one of its top leaders, Iranian officials covered it up, and no country has publicly claimed responsibility for it," the Times reported.
Long featured on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, al-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 $10 million reward for information leading to his capture, and as of Friday, his picture was still on the Most Wanted list, the Times reported.
“When Al Qaeda began to carry out terrorist activities in the late 1990s, al-Masri was one of the three of Bin Laden’s closest associates, serving as head of the organization’s operations section,” said Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Terrorism Project of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “He brought with him know-how and determination and since then was involved in a large part of the organization’s operations, with an emphasis on Africa.”
The news media in Iran reportedly identified the victims as Habib Daoud, a Lebanese history professor, and his 27-year-old daughter Maryam. It was later revealed by officials that Daoud was an alias Iranian officials gave al-Masri - and the history job description was a cover, according to the former leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, Nabil Naeem, who called al-Masri a longtime friend.
