by Hugh Fitzgerald
We have just learned, on November 13, of the killing in Iran on August 7 of Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, who was assassinated by Israeli agents at the request, according to all reports, of the American government. The story is here: “Israeli agents killed al-Qaeda’s No. 2 on Iran street, at behest of US: NY Times,” Times of Israel, November 14, 2020:
Israeli operatives gunned down al-Qaeda’s second-in-command on a Tehran street in August at the behest of the United States, the New York Times reported on Friday.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who used the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was accused of being one of the chief planners of devastating attacks on two US embassies in Africa in 1998.
He was killed on August 7, the anniversary of the attacks, the report said, citing unnamed intelligence officials.
Some people think that Muslims chose 9/11 for their attack because it was on 9/11/1683 that a pan-Muslim army began in earnest to assault Vienna, and was beaten back. If August 7 was chosen by the Israelis as the fatidic date on which to kill al-Masri, it was a fitting touch.
The attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 and injured hundreds more.
A former Israeli intelligence official told the newspaper [the New York Times] that Al-Masri is also accused of ordering the 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya which killed 13 and injured 80.
Al-Masri was driving his sedan close to his home when two Israeli agents on a motorcycle pulled up alongside his vehicle and fired five shots from a silenced pistol, killing al-Masri and his daughter, Miriam, who was married to Osama bin Laden’s late son Hamza bin Laden….
Following the shooting, Iranian media identified the victims as a history professor from Lebanon named Habib Daoud and his daughter, Maryam, the New York Times report said. A Lebanese news outlet and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said the victim was a member of the Hezbollah terrorist group, which is backed by Iran.
Daoud and Maryam did not actually exist, however. One intelligence official, and a former head of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad group, said the persona was an alias Iran provided to al-Masri.
It’s unclear why Iran would harbor al-Masri. Iran is a Shiite state, and has fought with al-Qaeda, a Sunni jihadist organization.
There is nothing strange about Iran giving refuge to members of Al-Qaeda. They’ve done it for almost two decades.. Sectarian differences can sometimes be overlooked in the shared hatred of the Infidels, and especially, of the world’s worst Infidels – the Great Satan of America and the Little Satan of Israel.
Intelligence officials told the Times that al-Masri was in Iranian “custody” since 2003 and lived in Tehran since at least 2015. While in Tehran, he was protected by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps but allowed to move freely and travel abroad….
Iran has denied harboring al-Qaeda members and did not respond to a New York Times request for comment on the article….
Despite its denial, Iran is known to have been harboring Al-Qaeda members for many years. There are those who always scoff at this notion, claiming superciliously that “it’s not possible for Shi’a Iran give refuge to the uber-Sunnis of Al-Qaeda.” As noted above, it’s not only possible, but perfectly understandable. Shared hatred of the Infidels has proven far stronger than hatred of one another. The al-Qaeda members in the country have figured that they would be safe in Iran, a large country with a government eager to hide them. And those Al-Qaeda members have noticed that the Americans have carefully refrained from targeting anyone inside Iran; they assassinated the Al-Quds leader Qasem Soleimani, remember, only when he arrived at Baghdad Airport from Iran. The Israelis, of necessity, play by different rules.
Around the time of al-Masri’s killing, a series of mysterious explosions rocked Iran, hitting several sensitive sites, including the Natanz nuclear facility, a power station, a pipeline, and the Parchin military complex outside Tehran.
All of these explosions have been attributed to Israeli agents, both cyberwarriors sitting in Israel, and others who are believed to have destroyed the advanced centrifuge plant at Natanz, through on-site sabotage. It may be that some of these explosions really were accidents. Israel, of course, has made no comment.
Iran said in September it had identified those responsible for the sabotage at the Natanz facility, but did not provide further details. Foreign media reports have attributed the explosion, which they said badly damaged an advanced centrifuge development and assembly plant, to Israel or the US.
Iran did not tell the world which country was responsible for the Natanz sabotage for an obvious reason. Had it named Israel, Iran’s government would then have felt the overwhelming popular pressure to respond, and at this point Tehran is not so foolish as to take on the Israelis directly. For now, it still prefers to build up its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon which, at some point, will no doubt be called upon by Iran to attack Israeli targets.
Israeli agents had in past years assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists using shooters on motorcycles, similar to al-Masri’s killing, according to foreign reports.
Al-Masri was from Egypt and around 58-years-old. He fought the Soviets in Afghanistan with jihadist groups, was then barred from returning to Egypt, and joined Bin Laden. He worked for al-Qaeda in Sudan and Somalia, where he trained militants to use weaponry they then used to shoot down US helicopters in Mogadishu in 1993 in the so-called Black Hawk Down incident. Nineteen American soldiers were killed in the battle with Somali militiamen….
In 2002, he orchestrated an attack in Kenya that killed 13 people — 10 Kenyans and three Israelis — when a car bomb went off at Mombasa’s Paradise Hotel on November 28, 2002, shortly after a large group of Israeli tourists checked into the beachfront resort.
At around the same time, a surface to-air missile targeted but missed an Arkia plane carrying 271 people as it took off from Mombasa airport.
In short, Abdullah Al-Masri was a very bad guy, and the Americans were glad to have the Israelis willing and able to take him out. It’s one more reminder of Israel’s value as a military ally to the U.S.
Israel had its own reasons, too, for killing Al-Masri. At the time of his death, according to those who had been watching him, he was planning attacks specifically on Jews and Israelis.
The Israelis have sometimes invoked a stirring bit of advice from the Talmud: “If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first.” That is what the two intrepid Israelis on that motorcycle, in the middle of Tehran, did in dispatching Abu Muhammad al-Masri. He will not be missed.
First published in Jihad Watch.
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One Response
NYTimes. 11-15-20. Section A Page 14—“Iran denies all the reports of the killing.
NYT refers only to anonymous sources in their assassination report. // Is this fake news or false news or untrue loos-news?