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Qaeda planner of London bombings dead |
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Written by News Editor
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Thursday, 10 April 2008 |
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Beirut
An al-Qaeda figure who helped plan the 2005 subway and bus bombings in London and a plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic has died, a US counter-terrorism official said Wednesday.
We have reason to believe that Abu Obaidah al-Masri is dead," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said al-Masri operated from the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border and that is where he is presumed to have died.
While not a household name, al-Masri was a senior al-Qaeda operative involved in planning and recruiting militants for attacks in Europe.
The official said he was a planner of the July 2005 subway and bus bombings in London, which killed 52 people, and a plot the following year to blow up commercial airliners over the Atlantic.
He was reported to have died of natural causes.
Pakistani security officials said they had received intelligence reports from sources in the tribal areas that al-Masri was severely ill with hepatitis in recent months.
Reports said he had been based in the North Waziristan tribal area, the scene of several recent air strikes targeting al-Qaeda militants. In January, one such missile attack killed top al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi.
The officials said al-Masri masterminded August 2006's alleged conspiracy to blow up jets flying from London to the United States.
He was responsible for guiding Rashid Rauf, a British national arrested by Pakistan in connection with the alleged plot, they said.
Rauf mysteriously escaped from police custody in December last year.
The officials said al-Masri and Ayman al-Zawahiri both frequented a religious school destroyed in an air strike in October 2006 in Pakistan's tribal areas with the loss of around 80 lives, though they were not there at the time. |
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