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Qaeda planner linked to UK plots dies: U.S. official
2008-04-09
Senior al Qaeda planner Obaidah al Masri, considered a key suspect in the 2005 London subway and bus bombings and a foiled 2006 plot to blow up commercial airliners, is believed to have died, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. "The sense is that he is dead," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. McClatchy newspapers reported that Masri died of hepatitis in Pakistan. The official said Masri appeared to have died of natural causes. "He was a major operational figure," the U.S. official said of al Masri, a pseudonym. He confirmed that Masri was suspected in the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. The Washington Post in 2006 also said he was believed to be al Qaeda's conduit to British-Pakistani cells that carried out the July 7, 2005, public transit bombings. The bombings killed 56 people. "He was someone ... who had ties to operations outside of the South Asia region. Al Qaeda lost something when this man died," the U.S. official said. However, he said, "They do have a regenerative capability." He declined to discuss Masri's whereabouts when he died. Much of al Qaeda's key leadership is believed to be holed up in remote areas of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. Masri had been reported killed in a 2006 missile strike in Pakistan, and later that year escaped another missile strike in a different Pakistani village. (Reporting by Randall Mikkelsen, editing by Jackie Frank)
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