An Egyptian Islamic militant alleged to be close to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was reportedly killed on Friday by a bomb dropped by US aircraft on Afghanistan, the head of an Islamic information agency said Thursday.
The Egyptian, calle dby the alias Abu Bassir Al Masri, was reportedly killed Friday near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, Yasser al-Serri, head of the Islamic Information Observatory, told AFP from London.
Serri said Abu Bassir was a member of the Egyptian Jamaa Islamiya group linked to bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, and managed a guesthouse at Jalalabad for fighters returning from or going to the front.
"He was not a senior military commander, as erroneous press reports have said," Serri added.
He said that Abu Bassir was with a number of others when a bomb fell nearby without exploding. One of them picked it up, but was told by another to get rid of it in case it was a delayed action device.
"He threw it away and it exploded," Serri said. "A splinter hit Abu Bassir and lodged in his spinal column."
He was taken to hospital and died later.
Two other people at the scene, a Chinese Muslim from Turkistan and a Saudi from Riyadh, were wounded in the hand, Serri added, quoting "witnesses.”
Abu Bassir, who was in his 30s, had been in Afghanistan for 10 years and married an Afghan woman, with whom he had a son, Serri said. Though not sought in Egypt, he had decided not to return home after seeing that some veterans of the Afghan wars had been arrested and sentenced there.
Serri was sentenced to death in his absence by an Egyptian court in 1995 for alleged involvement in a failed assassination bid against former prime minister Atef Sedki.
In 1999, he was given forced labor for life for belonging to the fundamentalist Jihad group.
Meanwhile, top Taliban and Al Qaeda organization leaders are still safe and sound, according to Al Jazeera satellite channel’s correspondent in Kabul. He cited sources as saying that bin laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were moving from place to place to escape US attacks on them.
He added that none of the key figures in the country was reported killed, and that the only Taliban miistry hit in the air raids was the Amr bil-Ma’aroof (religious guidance) ministry in Kabul – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
