Al-Qaida has confirmed that its deputy leader, known as Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria.
The group praised al-Masri as a hero and “wise leader” with a “long career of contributions” to holy war, or jihad, in a statement on Thursday.
It says he was killed in a “Crusader strike” in Syria, calling it “another in the crimes of America and its Crusader alliance.”
The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist organizations, said al-Masri — the nom de guerre of Egyptian militant Abdullah Mohammed Abdulrahman — may have been killed in a strike on Sunday on a vehicle in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.
Al-Masri was general deputy to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the top leader of al-Qaida when Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011.
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