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Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, accused of serving to to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, was killed in Iran in August by Israeli operatives performing on the behest of the United States, the New York Times reported, citing intelligence officers.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who glided by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down by two males on a motorbike within the streets of Tehran on Aug. 7, the Times reported on Friday.
The killing of Masri, who was seen as a possible successor to al Qaeda’s present chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was saved secret till now, the newspaper stated.
Read| Al-Qaida’s no. 2, accused in US Embassy assaults, is secretly killed in Iran
A senior Afghan safety supply instructed Reuters in October that Masri, who has lengthy been on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Terrorists record, had been killed within the Pasdaran space of Tehran. Reuters had been unable to corroborate that info.
It was unclear what, if any, position the United States had within the killing of the Egyptian-born militant, the Times stated. U.S. authorities had been monitoring Masri and different al Qaeda operatives in Iran for years, it stated.
Al Qaeda has not introduced his dying, Iranian officers have coated it up and no authorities has publicly claimed accountability, the Times stated.
Iran on Saturday denied the report, saying there have been no al Qaeda “terrorists” on its soil.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh stated in an announcement that the United States and Israel generally “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 President Donald Trump’s “scare-mongering tactic against Iran has become routine,” Khatibzadeh stated.
A U.S. official, talking to Reuters on situation of anonymity, declined to affirm any particulars of the Times story or say whether or not there was any U.S. involvement. The White House National Security Council didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The Israeli prime minister’s workplace stated it was not commenting on the report.
Israel has stated previously that its intelligence providers have penetrated Iran in recent times, together with saying in 2018 that it had smuggled out an alleged archive of Iranian nuclear secrets and techniques.
Masri, one in all al Qaeda’s founding leaders, was killed alongside together with his daughter, the Times reported. She was the widow of former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s son.
Osama bin Laden orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on the United States and was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in 2011.
Shi’ite Iran and al Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim militant group, have lengthy been enemies.
Masri had been in Iran’s “custody” since 2003 however had been dwelling freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran since 2015, the Times cited unnamed U.S. intelligence officers as saying.
U.S. counterterrorism officers consider Iran, additionally a U.S. enemy, could have let him dwell there to conduct operations in opposition to U.S. targets, the Times stated.
There was an uncommon killing in Tehran on Aug. 7, the day Masri was rep ortedly killed, that was reported by Iranian state media on the time. State media stated on Aug. eight {that a} Lebanese man and his daughter had been killed within the northern Tehran neighbourhood of Pasdaran by unknown assailants on motorbike.
They recognized the person as Habib Dawoud, a 58-year-old historical past trainer, and his daughter Mariam, 27.
The semi-official Mehr information company quoted a Tehran police supply as saying the 2 have been in a car and have been “shot four times from the driver’s side”.
The Iranian authorities didn’t affirm the incident on the time, though on Aug. eight the official IRNA information company reported that the general public relations workplace of Tehran’s Provincial Government had tweeted the report quoting a number of media, together with social media accounts.
It was not instantly identified what, if any, impression Masri’s dying has had on al Qaeda’s actions. Even because it has misplaced senior leaders within the practically twenty years for the reason that assaults on New York and Washington, it has maintained energetic associates from the Middle East to Afghanistan to West Africa.
The report of al-Masri’s killing comes weeks after the killing of two different senior al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan by native safety forces.
In October, Afghan safety forces killed Abu Muhsin al-Masri, one other individual on the FBI’s terrorist record, whereas the Afghan authorities this month introduced that it had killed yet one more senior al Qaeda commander.
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