Chief Qaeda Planner Dead, Officials Say
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MADRID, Spain — A suspected mastermind of Al Qaeda plots including the London transport bombings of 2005, has died of an infectious disease in Pakistan, Western anti-terrorism officials said yesterday.
The Egyptian militant is thought to have died of Hepatitis C, an American anti-terror official said. Al-Masri was the powerful, if little-known, chief of the network’s external operations who allegedly trained recruits in hideouts in Pakistan and dispatched them on attacks against the West, according to Western investigators.
As the Los Angeles Times reported last week, officials in three countries believed that al-Masri had died, but investigators did not have confirmation and noted that Al Qaeda had not paid tribute to al-Masri with eulogies on the Internet as with other fallen leaders.
Recently, however, anti-terror investigators detected conversations among Al Qaeda militants disclosing that al-Masri had died of Hepatitis C, the American official said. Death of natural causes would explain the lack of eulogies, which are generally reserved for extremists who die violently as “martyrs,” officials said.
