BEFORE HIS UNTIMELY DEMISE in Damadola, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar–a man known better among both jihadists and intelligence agencies as Abu Khabab al-Masri–was one of the most reclusive members of the al Qaeda leadership. Despite having been identified as a senior member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, little public information exists about him. He was among the dozens of Islamists arrested in the 1980s for participation in the conspiracy to kill Anwar Sadat and no information except his birth date (April 29, 1953) is available on the “Rewards for Justice” poster circulated by the U.S. government which offered a $5,000,000 reward for his capture.

According to an Associated Press report from December 2005, which cited Islamist researchers from the London-based Islamic Observation Center, Khabab grew up in Alexandria’s crowded al-Asafirah district and graduated from Alexandria University in 1975. He left Egypt for Saudi Arabia in 1987 and from there traveled to Afghanistan to join the jihad against the Soviet Union. His activities following the Afghan War are clouded in mystery, but as of the late 1990s he was in charge of his own facility at al Qaeda’s Darunta training camp in Afghanistan. It is the activities undertaken at that camp and other facilities like it, however, that elevated Khabab’s profile.