Iran denies that al Qaeda No. 2 was murdered on its territory – International

The New York Times reported Friday that, according to unidentified sources, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, accused by a large US federal jury of his role in planning the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, resulted in 224 was shot dead by Israeli agents on motorcycles during a secret mission at Washington’s request in Tehran on August 7, the date of the attacks on US embassies in the two African countries. .

The leader of al-Qaeda, known as Abu Mohammed al-Masri, who was on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists, was killed along with his daughter, Miriam. She was the widow of Hamza bin Laden, one of the sons of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda in the 1990s, according to the New York Times.

Iran’s enemies, the United States and Israel, “are trying to escape accountability for the criminal acts of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the region and link Iran to these criminal organizations through lies and fabricated information leaked to the media” he said Saturday. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, who denied the presence of al-Qaeda members in Iran, stressed that the group was born of the wrong policies of the United States and its allies in the region, advising the American media not to “fall into the trap of the Hollywood scenario. . American officials and Zionists “.

(Saeed Khatibzadeh / Sursa photo: mfa.gov.ir)

US intelligence officials told the New York Times that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah had been “detained” by Iran since 2003, but had been living freely since at least 2015 in a luxury suburb of Tehran.

On the day of his death, he was driving a white Renault L90 sedan with his daughter when two gunmen on a motorcycle fired five shots at them with a silencer pistol, the American newspaper reports.

Iranian television reported at the time, citing an unidentified police source, that a motorist shot and killed a father and daughter on Pasdaran Street in northern Tehran near the home of Iraqi Shiite militia vice president Abu Mahdi. al-Mohandes. lost his life in a US assassination in Iraq.

The official Iranian news agency Irna and the Mehr news agency then reported a similar incident and identified the victims as Habib Dawoud, a 58-year-old Lebanese history teacher, and his 27-year-old daughter Maryam. without giving further details.

“The individual on the motorcycle got off the curb and ran away,” and police investigations are ongoing, the two agencies added. Since then, no news has been reported.

US federal authorities had offered a $ 10 million (€ 8.45 million) reward for any information leading to the capture of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah. According to a high-level document provided by the US National Counterterrorism Center in 2008, according to the New York Times, he was “the most experienced and knowledgeable operational planner not owned by the United States or its allies.”

Washington accused Tehran of hosting members of al-Qaeda – a group classified as a terrorist organization of the United Nations – and allowed them to cross its territory in 2016, something Iranian officials denied at the time.

“While America has not been shy in making false accusations against Iran in the past, this approach has become routine in the current US administration,” Khatibzadeh continued.