US drone strike in Syria kills top al-Qaida leader, jihadis say
Source: The Guardian
One of al-Qaidas most senior global leaders has been killed by a US drone strike in north-west Syria, jihadi leaders have said.
Abu al-Khayr al-Masri who has been part of the global jihadi organisation for three decades and was a son-in-law of its founder, Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday when a missile fired from a drone hit the small car in which he was travelling. Masri had also been a close aide to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a fellow Egyptian.
On Monday, the Pentagon confirmed it had carried out a strike in north-west Syria, but did not say whom the attack had targeted. Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the al-Qaida-inspired group that Masri had worked alongside in Syria, acknowledged the death, as did individual jihadi leaders.
Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based writer on Islamic groups, said Masris death was a serious blow to al-Qaida. His death is no less significant than that of Bin Laden (who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan in May 2011), Hashimi said. He was the ideological leader of the group in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and the number two in the organisation overall.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/27/us-drone-strike-in-syria-kills-top-al-qaida-leader-jihadis-say
Martin Chulov in Beirut and Tom McCarthy in New York
Monday 27 February 2017 11.44 GMT
JudyM
(29,122 posts)challenge from the Seal Team dad William Owens.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)proven again.
question everything
(47,271 posts)High hopes for the eagles trained by the French military to grab and destroy drones.