Al Qaeda loses leader of half its war effort

AFP:

An Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative described by the United States as the terror network's propaganda chief was killed in a missile strike in Pakistan, security officials said Saturday.

Abu Jihad al-Masri was among several rebels killed when two missiles fired by a suspected US spy drone hit a truck in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan on Friday night, they said.

The United States has offered a one-million-dollar bounty for the death or capture of al-Masri, who has appeared in an anti-Western video introduced by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's number two.

"The strike was aimed at a vehicle carrying Abu Jihad and two others. The target was successfully hit and all three people were killed," a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

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The US State Department's Rewards for Justice website said that the balding al-Masri "is in charge of Al-Qaeda media and propaganda. He may also be the chief of external operations for Al-Qaeda".

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In 2006, al-Masri appeared in a video introduced by his fellow countryman Zawahiri, in which al-Masri said that his own Islamic group, Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, had joined forces with Al-Qaeda.

The video was released by As Sahab, Al-Qaeda's media arm.

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Zawahiri has said that half of al Qaeda's war effort was in the media battle space, and this guy was in charge of it. Actually their media effort has been suffering in recent months beginning with al Qaeda's defeat in Iraq. Switching their war effort to Afghanistan has not enhanced their media effort.