Iran refutes US claims of killing al-Qaeda leader on Iranian soil

SANAA, Nov. 15 (YPA) – Iran has categorically dismissed a US media report that one of the top leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist group had been secretly killed by Washington-directed Israeli agents in the capital, Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Saturday that the Times’ report was based on “false information,” vehemently rejecting the presence of any of the terrorist group’s members in the country.

“Such accusations are undoubtedly made in the context of an all-out economic, intelligence and psychological warfare against the Iranian people, and that the media should not be a platform for spreading agenda-driven White House lies against Tehran,” The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman added.

Citing unnamed intelligence officials, The New York Times claimed on Friday that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, the al-Qaeda’s second-in-command who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, had been gunned down by two armed assassins on a motorcycle in the streets of Tehran in August.

The paper said al-Masri, who was charged with helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa, had been killed in Iran by Israeli operatives acting at the behest of the United States.

E.M