An Al Qaeda commander who is reportedly said to have engineered the deadly 1998 terror attack at the US Embassy in Nairobi has been dead for three months.
According to the New York Times, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah alias Muhammad al-Masri was killed in Tehran by assassins on a motorbike on August 7.
Intelligence officials have since confirmed this.
At the time of the shooting, intelligence reports add, he was in the company of his daughter Miriam who was married to Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden.
Miriam was also killed in the operation said to have been executed by the Israeli government in collaboration with the US government.
The shooting was executed in August 7, the same day that hundreds of families remembered their relatives who lost their live in the truck bomb attack that killed more than 200 people.
“The killing occurred in such a netherworld of geopolitical intrigue and counterterrorism spycraft that Mr. al-Masri’s death had been rumored but never confirmed until now. 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 New York Times article read in part.
Abdullah was a key operative of the Al Qaeda terror network. He was one of the founders and held the deputy’s position in command after Ayman al-Zawahri.
The 58-year-old has been in FBI’s radar of the most wanted terrorists in East Africa. He also masterminded a similar attack on the US Embassy in Tanzania.