Al-Qaeda's third-in-command, whose role spanned from operations to fundraising, is believed to have been killed earlier this month in a U.S. missile strike in the tribal areas of Pakistan, officials said early Tuesday, in what would be a major blow to the global terror network.
The CIA has stepped up the pace of unmanned drone strikes in the tribal zone bordering Afghanistan, targeting not only high-level al-Qaeda and Taliban targets but largely unknown foot soldiers as well.
"In terms of counterterrorism, this would be a big victory," a U.S. official said of the death of Sheikh Said al-Masri, also known as Mustafa Abu al-Yazid.
Al-Masri was widely seen as al-Qaeda’s No. 3 figure and its main conduit to leader Osama bin Laden.
As al-Qaeda’s chief operating officer, he had a hand in everything from finances to operational planning, the official said on condition of anonymity.
"We have strong reason to believe … that al-Masri was killed recently in Pakistan’s tribal areas," the U.S. official said.
Al-Qaeda confirms
Earlier on Monday, al-Qaeda announced al-Masri’s death in an Internet posting, according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist websites.
In addition to al-Masri, the announcement said that his wife, three of his daughters, his granddaughter and other men, women and children were killed.
SITE said al-Masri, an Egyptian, served as the general head of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and that his last known public statement, dated May 4, eulogized the deaths of top militants in Iraq.
The U.S. official said al-Masri is believed to have been killed earlier in May but did not provide a specific date.
The bearded Yazid appeared in a number of videos released by Al-Qaeda since he first emerged as head of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in May 2007, wearing thick glasses and a white turban.
A former member of the Islamic Jihad movement in Egypt, he had close links with Zawahiri and served time in jail over the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.
"This is one of the most significant blows against Al-Qaeda in recent years and its impact will be felt by the group," said Ben Venzke of intelligence analysis group IntelCenter.
He said Yazid ran Al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"New phase" in terrorism
CIA Director Leon Panetta has asserted that attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal regions appear to have driven bin Laden and other leaders deeper into hiding, leaving the organization incapable of planning sophisticated operations.
But the White House warned last week of a dangerous "new phase" in the terrorism threat, citing the failed Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner and the botched Times Square car bomb attempt earlier this month.
In March, U.S. officials said a drone strike in Pakistan killed a key al-Qaeda planner, Hussein al-Yemeni.
U.S. officials say the pilotless drones are one of the most effective weapons against militants, but they have stoked resentment in Pakistan, where anti-American feeling runs high.
According to Yasser al-Sirri, the director of the London-based Islamic Observatory, Yazid was born in December 1955 in Egypt’s Nile Delta region.
Sirri said at the time of Yazid’s appearance in May 2007 that he was "trusted by bin Laden, for whom he ran businesses in Sudan" when the founder of al-Qaeda lived in exile there before Khartoum expelled him in 1996.
"Yazid is known for his integrity and management skills, but has never taken organizational or military responsibility at the heart of al-Qaeda, of which he was one of the founders in 1989," Sirri said.
Yazid’s last public statement was in a message released on May 4, when he delivered eulogies for Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, the two top al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq who were killed in April.