Abu Khabab al-Masri: A Master of Terror

According to a growing number of media reports, a recent U.S. airstrike on a Pakistani border village has likely killed a senior Egyptian Al-Qaida commander named Midhat Mursi (a.k.a. Abu Khabab al-Masri).  Since the late 1980s, Abu Khabab has served as a top military aide and deputy to Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan.  Mursi was responsible for co-managing Al-Qaida's notorious Derunta military training complex near Jalalabad, where he maintained his own elite terrorist graduate school aptly named the "Abu Khabab Camp." 

In November 1995, Abu Khabab organized his first major terrorist plot in response to an international crackdown on the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, dispatching two suicide bombers from the Derunta training camp to target the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.  The twin car bombs killed 17 people and wounded 59 others.  In later memoirs regarding Abu Khabab's 1995 operation, Ayman al-Zawahiri explained, "The basic objective was to attack the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, but if that proved difficult to do, then to strike at any other U.S. target in Pakistan.  However, following intensive and detailed surveillance, we discovered that bombing the U.S. Embassy was beyond our capability."

Following his success in Islamabad, Abu Khabab teamed up with other veteran Al-Qaida commanders (including Abu Musab al-Suri, who was recently captured in Pakistan) to train a new generation of terrorist sleeper cells destined for targets in the Western world.  One of these fresh recruits was Algerian Ahmed Ressam, who was later detained when he attempted to cross into the United States from Canada with a trunkload of explosives.  Ressam told investigators that, while in Afghanistan, he was selected by Al-Qaida commanders for advanced technical training.  In October 1998, Ressam traveled to Abu Khabab's Derunta camp in order to learn more about electronics, chemicals, and how to build explosives.  Ressam admitted to attending training courses at Derunta in crude chemical warfare (including cyanide experiments on dogs) and further claimed that the camp featured instruction on the specific use of poisons to assassinate prominent political leaders and intelligence agents.  Ressam reported that his fellow Al-Qaida recruits enrolled at Derunta included French nationals, Italians, Germans, Swedes, and Britons of Jamaican origin.

In the chaotic aftermath of September 11, Abu Khabab al-Masri abandoned his former camp at Derunta and disappeared into the mountains--only to suddenly resurface in December 2003, when the U.S. government reportedly received a tip from a credible Al-Qaida informant that Abu Khabab "was active again."  According to New York Post, the information was considered so disturbing that the White House ordered the Department of Energy to dispatch radiological detection teams to New York and four other cities to monitor subsequent New Year's Eve celebrations.  Additionally, the U.S. government announced a $5 million reward for information on Abu Khabab.

Following the departures of Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, Abu Faraj al-Liby, and most recently Abu Hamza Rabia--and given his close, longstanding ties to Ayman al-Zawahiri--Abu Khabab al-Masri was considered a prime contender to take charge of orchestrating Al-Qaida's international terrorist operations.  If reports of his death are accurate, Al-Qaida has no doubt suffered a significant blow to its top leadership and has lost the resources of a truly innovative and highly skilled terror mastermind.