(REUTERS): Israeli operatives in Iran have reportedly killed Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, accused of helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, in August, according to an international newspaper, citing intelligence officials.
According to the report, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in the streets of Tehran on Aug. 7.
The report further informed that the killing of Al Qaeda’s second-in-command was kept secret until now. However, the report added, it was unclear what, if any, role the United States had in the killing of the Egyptian-born militant.
“Al Qaeda has not announced his death, Iranian officials have covered it up and no government has publicly claimed responsibility,” the report claimed.
A senior Afghan security source told an international news agency in October that Masri, who has long been on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, had been killed in the Pasdaran area of Tehran.
In this regard, the Israeli prime minister’s office said it was not commenting on the report. Israel has said in the past that its intelligence services have penetrated Iran in recent years, including saying in 2018 that it had smuggled out an alleged archive of Iranian nuclear secrets.
Iran denied report
Meanwhile, Iran today (Saturday) has denied the report, saying there was no al Qaeda “terrorists” on its soil. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, “The administration of President Donald Trump’s scare-mongering tactic against Iran has become routine.”
The Foreign Ministry spokesman further said that the United States and Israel sometimes 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”.
Masri, one of al Qaeda’s founding leaders, was killed along with his daughter, the report informed. She was the widow of former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s son. Osama bin Laden orchestrated Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in 2011.
