Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Al Qaeda’s number 2 man and a member of the FBI’s most wanted list, was assassinated last August in Iran. This according to a report in the New York Times which stated that the assassination was carried out by Israeli agents at the behest of the U.S. Government.
Abu Muhammad al-Masri was accused of masterminding the terrorist attacks on American embassies in Africa back in 1998. The attacks, which took place in Kenya and Tanzania, killed 224 people and wounded many more. al-Masri’s killing was carried out on August 7, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
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According to the report al-Masri’s daughter, Miriam, who was the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden, was also killed in the attack.
Two gunmen fired four bullets from a silenced gun at a car which al-Masri was driving and in which his daughter was a passenger.
At the time the Iranian government claimed that the victims of the shooting were a Lebanese history professor and Hezbollah member Habib Daoud and his daughter.
But Iran is denying that al-Masri was killed or that he had even ever been living in Iran.
Its Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, “From time to time, Washington and Tel Aviv try to tie Iran to such groups by lying and leaking false information to the media in order to avoid responsibility for the criminal activities of this group and other terrorist groups in the region.”
“Even though America has not shied away from making any false accusation against Iran in the past, this approach has become routine in the current US administration.”
Neither the American nor the Israeli governments have as yet commented on these reports.
It would not have been very practical for Israel or the United States to take credit for carrying out such an assassination on Iranian soil. The Trump administration may have chosen not to brag about being behind the operation because it was performed by Israel and not American agents.
Israel, for its part, never confirms what its agents have done inside of other countries. And it surely does not want to give Iran an excuse retaliates through its proxy in the Hezbollah terrorist organization.
The one question for now is, depending on who the anonymous source behind the story was, why did they reveal the assassination now? Pundits on the Sunday talk shows will all be speculating if this was deliberately leaked by the Trump administration because it wanted the word to get out without admiring involvement. Others will speculate as to why President Trump did not brag about this before the elections.
