 CAIRO, Egypt -- Al Qaeda confirmed in a Web statement Sunday the death of a senior commander known as a top explosives and poisons expert, who is believed to have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan last week.
The statement said Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other commanders were killed. It did not give details on when or how they were killed, but Pakistani authorities have said they believe al-Masri died in an American airstrike last Monday on a compound near the Afghan border.
| Which was why the Paks were bitching so hard about how we violated their sovreignty... |
Pakistani officials have said six people were killed in that strike, in the country's lawless South Waziristan tribal region.
| Al-Q sez Zawahiri wasn't among the dear departed, dang it... |
 Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose real name is Midhat Mursi, had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States. He is accused of training terrorists to use poisons and explosives, and is believed to have trained homicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. |