Kabul, June 01: Al-Qaeda has announced that its top leader in Afghanistan Mustafa Abu al-Yazid has been killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan within the past two weeks.
“His death will only be a severe curse by his life upon the infidels,” al-Qaeda said late Monday in a statement quoted by the New York Times.
The Egyptian Yazid, the financial director for al-Qaeda as well as one of the group’s founders, was considered by American intelligence to be one of the al-Qaeda triumvirate with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Other sources say that Yazid was killed in Datta Khel, a region administered by North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar.
US intelligence officials have authenticated the statement, saying that Yazid, known as Sheik Saeed al-Masri, apparently was killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
“Al-Masri was the group’s chief operating officer, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning,” said an American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“He was also the organization’s prime conduit to bin Laden and Zawahiri,” he added, referring to al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri. “He was key to al-Qaeda’s command and control.”
——-Agencies