Abu Khabab al-Masri (Archive photo)
צילום: AFP
Report: Qaeda confirms death of arms expert
Islamist website says global terror group confirmed death of Abu Khabab al-Masri in suspected US strike in Pakistan. 'He joined caravan of martyrs,' Qaeda commander in Afghanistan says
Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of a chemical and biological weapons expert whose killing in a suspected US strike was reported by Pakistan, an Islamist militant website said on Sunday.
Abu Khabab al-Masri was among a group of "heroes" who joined "the caravans of martyrs," said a statement signed by Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al-Qaeda's general commander in Afghanistan.
Its authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
Pakistani officials had said that a July 28 missile strike in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area killed Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose full name was Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar.
Residents said a US drone launched the attack.
Pakistan's Taliban movement on Saturday denied a US television report that al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri may have been wounded or killed in the same incident.
The al-Qaeda statement, dated July 30 and posted on a site regularly used by Islamist militants, did not say how Abu Khabab al-Masri died.
It named other slain militants as "the mujahed sheikh and educator Abu Mohammad Ibrahim bin Abi al-Faraj al-Masri," Abdul Wahhab al-Masri and Abu Islam al-Masri.
"Some of their children" also died with them, it said without confirming they had been killed by a missile.
'Claim is rubbish'
Pakistani security officials had told AFP that Abu Khabab al-Masri's 18-year-old son, another Egyptian, two Saudis and a Pakistani were also among the six people killed when missiles hit a house attached to a village mosque.
Abu Khabab al-Masri had a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head and was alleged to have trained hundreds of extremists at camps in Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.
The al-Qaeda statement described him as an "expert" without elaborating.
"An 'expert' may have gone, but he has left behind -- thanks be to God -- experts whom he trained during years of giving, patience and forbearance for the sake of right," the statement said.
Pakistan's military said on Saturday it had no information on the report by US television network CBS that Zawahiri may have been wounded or killed in the missile strike.
CBS said it had obtained an intercepted letter from a Taliban commander urgently requesting a doctor to treat Zawahiri.
"This is totally baseless. The claim is rubbish, there is no truth in this," Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement), told AFP.
"Baitullah did not write any letter to anybody. He never asked for any help or assistance," said Omar, referring to Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud who has been linked by Pakistani and US officials to al-Qaeda.
"There is no evidence or information in this regard. We have no reliable information," Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP about the Zawahiri report.
An intelligence official based in South Waziristan said they had heard rumors about Zawahiri being targeted "and we checked it but we have not been able to confirm it."
