The third highest commander in the international Al-Qaeda terrorist organization is reported dead following a missile attack by United States armed forces.
Sheikh Said al-Masri – whose nom de guerre was Mustafa Abu al-Yazid – was killed last week along with his wife, three daughters and a grandchild as well as others, according to a report posted Tuesday on the group's Internet web site.
Al-Masri was Al-Qaeda's top commander in Afghanistan and was one of the founders of the terrorist group. If his death is confirmed, it would make him the top Al-Qaeda leader to be assassinated in the past 18 months, and the first important kill by the Obama administration.
It is believed the Egyptian-born terrorist commander was killed in an air strike by a CIA drone on a terrorist compound in one of the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The reports that his family were killed as well seem to point to the presence of civilians at the compound.
The 55-year-old Al-Masri was considered to be the fiscal “executive” who financed Al-Qaeda's “9/11” attack on New York and Washington in 2001 and provided day-to-day operational planning for the group.
He also provided the funds for a bombing attack on the New York subway system that was thwarted by local police officers. The attack, which targeted Grand Central Station and Times Square subway trains during rush-hour traffic, was timed to strike just days after the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terror destruction of the World Trade Center in New York.
The principal suspect in the foiled bombing, Najibullah Zazi, pleaded guilty and turned state's witness, helping prosecutors trace the plot back to Pakistan where he and several friends received terrorist training in 2008. Zazi, a Colorado airport van driver linked to an Afghanistan-born Muslim cleric, admitted he intended to attack the subway in retaliation for U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.