Underwear-bomb maker dead in Yemen strike

Underwear-bomb maker dead in Yemen strike

A Saudi militant believed killed in the US drone strike in Yemen constructed the bombs for the Al-Qaeda branch's most notorious attempted attacks - including the underwear-borne explosives intended to a down a US aircraft, and a bomb carried by his own brother intended to assassinate a Saudi prince.

The death of Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri would make the Friday drone strikes on a convoy in the central deserts of Yemen one of the most effective single blows in the US campaign to take out Al-Qaeda's top figures.

The strike also killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric who had been key to recruiting for the militant group and a Pakistani-American, Samir Khan, who was a top English-language propagandist.

But Christopher Boucek, a scholar who studies Yemen and Al-Qaeda, said al-Asiri's death would 'overshadow' that of the two Americans due to his operational importance to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based group that is considered the most active branch of the terror network.

Source: AP
Published Oct 2 2011