WASHINGTON — Al-Qaeda announced Monday that its No. 3 official, Sheikh Sa’id al-Masri, had been killed along with members of his family — perhaps one of the most severe blows to the terror movement since the U.S. campaign against al-Qaeda began. A U.S. official said al-Masri was believed to have died in a U.S. missile strike.
A statement posted on an al-Qaeda website said al-Masri, which it described as the organization’s top commander in Afghanistan, was killed along with his wife, three daughters, a grandchild and other men, women and children but did not say how or where.
The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said word was “spreading in extremist circles” of his death in Pakistan’s tribal areas in the past two weeks.
Al-Masri has been reported killed before, in 2008, but this is the first time his death has been acknowledged by the militant group on the Internet.
Al-Masri, also known as Mustafa al-Yazid, was the group’s prime conduit to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and he was key to day-to-day control, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning, the U.S. official said.
The official says his death would be a major blow to al-Qaeda, which in December “lost both its internal and external operations chiefs.”
Al-Masri has been one of many targets in a U.S. Predator drone campaign aimed at militants in Pakistan since President Barack Obama took office. The Egyptian-born militant made no secret of his contempt for the United States, once calling it “the evil empire leading crusades against the Muslims.”
