The main suspect in the 2005 London public transit bombings and a foiled 2006 plot to blow up passenger planes, Abu Obaidah al Masri, is believed to have died from natural causes, US and British officials claimed today.
"There is compelling reason to believe that Abu Obaidah is dead," a US counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. It was reported that Masri died of hepatitis in Pakistan.
The US official said Masri appeared to have died of natural causes, and a British official said his death had been known to security sources for some time.
"He was a major operational figure," another US official said of Masri, the nom de guerre of one of the least known major al Qaeda figures.
Masri was an Egyptian, known as an explosives expert and a key figure in spreading Islamic militancy to Europe by bringing young Muslims with Western backgrounds to Pakistan for training, said M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London.
"The terror trail keeps leading back to Pakistan, and Masri was an essential part of al Qaeda's headquarters in that country."
The US official confirmed that Masri was suspected in the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. The Washington Post said in 2006 he was believed to be al Qaeda's conduit to British-Pakistani cells that carried out the July 7, 2005 subway and bus bombings in London that killed 56 people.
Masri had been reported killed in a 2006 missile strike in Pakistan, but that was disproved. Later that year he was reported to have escaped a separate missile strike on an Islamic school in Pakistan.