Abdullah Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Rajab Abd al-Rahman (Arabic: عبد الله عبد الرحمن محمد رجب عبد الرحمن), known as Ahmad Hasan Abu al-Khayr al-Masri (Arabic: أحمد حسن أبو الخير المصري), (3 November 1957 – 26 February 2017) was an Egyptian al-Qaeda leader who has been described as the general deputy to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.[3][4][5]
History
Al-Masri was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad alongside Ayman al-Zawahiri and fled the country in the mid-1980s along with many other Islamic militants.
He headed al-Qaeda's political committee and was a member of the Shura Council. He has been described as operating as a "trusted lieutenant" of the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri with whom al-Masri worked in Sudan and Afghanistan.[6]
In September 2015 it was reported that Abu Khayr al-Masri was released by Iran in March 2015 together with other al-Qaeda leaders including Saif al-Adel and Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah in a prisoner exchange.[9] He was reported to have then traveled to Syria with three men to join the Al-Nusra Front branch of al-Qaeda.[6]
Syria
On 28 July 2016, the Al-Minaret al-Bayda media wing of the Syrian al-Qaeda branch Jabhat al-Nusra released an audio message from him claiming that the Nusra front had cut all connections with al-Qaeda and renamed it the Fateh al-Sham Front.[6]
Death
Reports surfaced on 26 February 2017 that al-Masri had been killed in a U.S. airstrike in his car in Al-Mastumah in the Syrian province of Idlib.[10] There was no immediate official confirmation from either the United States or al-Qaeda.[6][11]Guardian journalists Tom McCarthy and Martin Chulov later reported that jihadist leaders confirmed that al-Masri was killed in the drone strike.[12] The airstrike also killed another Tahrir al-Sham militant traveling in the car.[2][1] A US intelligence official and al-Qaeda later confirmed that al-Masri had been killed in the strike, which used a variant of the AGM-114 Hellfire missile.[13][14][15][16] This weapon, known as the AGM-114 R9X, lacks an explosive warhead. Instead, it deploys six blades just before impact so it may kill its target while reducing the likelihood of harm to people nearby.[17]