Israeli assassins reportedly gunned down al Qaeda’s second-in-command on the streets of Tehran months ago.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, one of the masterminds behind the deadly 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa who went under the pseudonym Abu Muhammad al Masri, was shot and killed on Aug. 7, which coincided with the anniversary of the bombings, by Israeli agents on motorcycles who were acting at the behest of the United States, according to the New York Times.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh denied the assassination and urged people “not fall into the trap of American and Zionist officials’ Hollywood scenarios.”
The New York Times’s Friday report was the first time that al Masri’s death had been reported publicly, and he was on the FBI’s most wanted list as of this week.
His daughter Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza bin Laden, was also killed in the shooting. The extent of the involvement of the U.S. in the assassination is unknown.
At the time, Iranian state media reported that the victim of the shooting was Habib Daoud, a Lebanese history professor, and his 27-year-old daughter Maryam. The Lebanese news channel MTV reported that Daoud was a member of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon.
It was believed that al Masri was second in command behind leader Ayman al Zawahiri.
The location of al Masri’s assassination is somewhat surprising given that Iran, a Shiite country, and al Qaeda, the militant Sunni group, are enemies.
