| Mossad agents are wandering the streets of the Iranian capitol with plans of mayhem in their hearts? That’s almost as unbelievable as Mossad emptying an entire warehouse archive of top secret files, hard drives, and flash drives into trucks and taking them all the way across the MidEast to Israel without anyone noticing. |
#BREAKING: New York Times reports Israeli agents shot Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader on the streets of Tehran at the behest of the U.S., officials said. The killing was kept secret until now. https://t.co/al5ukFFXsg
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) November 14, 2020
| For those of of us who will not pay to get behind the New York Times paywall, the Jerusalem Post has the highlights: |
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
in August by Israeli operatives acting at the behest of the United States, the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
reported on Friday, citing intelligence officials.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was bumped off by two men on a cycle of violence in the streets of Tehran on Aug. 7, the Times reported.
The killing of Masri, who was seen as a likely successor to al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri
...Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodox al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
, was kept secret until now, the newspaper said.
It was unclear what, if any, role the United States had in the killing of the Egyptian-born bad boy, the Times said. U.S. authorities had been tracking Masri and other al Qaeda operatives in Iran for years, it said.
Al Qaeda has not announced his death, Iranian officials have covered it up and no government has publicly grabbed credit, the Times said.
A U.S. official, speaking to Rooters on condition of anonymity, declined to confirm any details of the Times’ story or say whether there was any U.S. involvement. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Masri, one of al Qaeda's founding leaders, was killed along with his daughter, the widow of former al Qaeda chief the late Osama bin Laden
...... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse......
’s son, Hamza bin Laden, the Times reported.
Osama bin Laden orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistain in 2011.
Masri had been in Iran’s "custody" since 2003 but had been living freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran since 2015, the Times cited unnamed U.S. intelligence officials as saying.
| Even more from The Times of Israel: |
The assassination has not been publicly acknowledged by the US, Israel, Iran or al-Qaeda.
The US was keeping tabs on al-Masri and other members of the terrorist group in Iran for years, but it’s unknown what role the US played in the killing, if any.
Following the shooting, Iranian media identified the victims as a history professor from Lebanon named Habib Daoud and his daughter, Maryam, the New York Times report said. A Lebanese news outlet and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said the victim was a member of the Hezbollah terrorist group, which is backed by Iran.
Daoud and Maryam did not actually exist, however. One intelligence official, and a former head of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad group, said the persona was an alias Iran provided to al-Masri.
Iran has denied harboring al-Qaeda members and did not respond to a New York Times request for comment on the article. Israeli and US officials also declined to comment.
Around the time of al-Masri’s killing, a series of mysterious explosions rocked Iran, hitting several sensitive sites, including the Natanz nuclear facility, a power station, a pipeline, and the Parchin military complex outside Tehran.
Iran said in September it had identified those responsible for the sabotage at the Natanz facility, but did not provide further details. Foreign media reports have attributed the explosion, which they said badly damaged an advanced centrifuge development and assembly plant, to Israel or the US.
Israeli agents had in past years assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists using shooters on motorcycles, similar to al-Masri’s killing, according to foreign reports.
Al-Masri was from Egypt and around 58-years-old. He fought the Soviets in Afghanistan with jihadist groups, was then barred from returning to Egypt, and joined Bin Laden. He worked for al-Qaeda in Sudan and Somalia, where he trained militants to use weaponry they then used to shoot down US helicopters in Mogadishu in 1993 in the so-called Black Hawk Down incident. Nineteen American soldiers were killed in the battle with Somali militiamen.
Bin Laden then charged al-Masri with plotting attacks against US sites in Africa, leading to the simultaneous bombings of the two US embassies. The FBI had offered a $10 million reward for information on him.
| Related from the Rantburg archives: |
[Combating Terrorism Center] Abu Muhammad has long played a critical role in al-Qa`ida, both as an operational commander and as a member of the governing shura council. Yet despite his importance to the organization, Abu Muhammad remains a shadowy figure. Little is known about his early life or his current activities. Unlike most al-Qa`ida Central figures, he is based not in northern Pakistain but in Iran, where he was previously imprisoned and now resides under a murky arrangement by which he is apparently allowed a great deal of freedom while still being barred from leaving the country.
The fall of 1998 marked a high point in Abu Muhammad al-Masri’s career. He had just returned to Afghanistan from East Africa, where he had criminal masterminded al-Qa`ida’s deadliest attack on the United States yet‐the twin truck bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.1 He had positioned himself as one of Osama bin Ladin’s key confidants, to be consulted on the planning of all major attacks. And he had risen to the leadership of al-Qa`ida’s network of training camps.
Abu Muhammad was born Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah in June 1963 in Gharbia, a governorate of Lower Egypt in the central Nile Delta. As a young man, he played soccer professionally for a club in the Egyptian premier league.