Ibrahim al-Asiri
Ibrahim al-AsiriREUTERS

US forces operating in Yemen killed a senior Al Qaeda terrorist responsible for a string of prominent bombing plots, President Donald Trump announced Thursday.

In a press statement Thursday, Trump revealed that US counterterrorism forces operating in Yemen in 2017 eliminated Ibrahim al-Asiri, a top Al Qaeda terrorist and bomb-maker, who was responsible for a string of high-profile bombing attempts.

Al-Asiri was behind the abortive bombing attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on December 25th 2009, the ‘Christmas Day Bombing” by terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also known as the “Underwear Bomber”, who sparked a fire onboard Flight 253 while attempting to detonate a plastic explosive pack he had concealed in his underwear.

Other prominent terror plots linked to al-Asiri included planned bombing attacks in 2010 and 2012.

“This will confirm for the first time that Ibrahim al-Asiri, a senior al-Qa’ida bomb maker and terrorist coordinator, was killed two years ago in a United States counterterrorism operation in Yemen,” the statement from the White House read.

“Al-Asiri built explosive devices that were used in the failed Christmas Day 2009 underwear bomb attack and the disrupted printer cartridge bomb plot in 2010. He also built an explosive device intended to be used against a passenger aircraft in 2012, and the device used in the attempted assassination of the former Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Al-Asiri's death significantly handicapped al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula. The United States will continue to hunt down terrorists like al-Asiri until they no longer pose a threat to our great Nation.”