Abu Khayr al-Masri

He left Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks and prior to the United States invasion of Afghanistan. He fled to Iran, where he was arrested in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in April 2003.[7] Also arrested alongside him were other senior al-Qaeda leaders including Saif al-Adel, Abu Mohammed al-Masri and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. According to a statement that Sulaiman Abu Ghaith gave to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, four al-Qaeda leaders were first jailed in an Iranian intelligence building in Tehran for approximately one year and eight months.[8]

On 28 July 2016, the Al-Minaret al-Bayda media wing of the Syrian al-Qaeda branch Jabhat al-Nusra released an audio message from him claiming that the Nusra front had cut all connections with al-Qaeda and renamed it the Fateh al-Sham Front.[6]

Reports surfaced on 26 February 2017 that al-Masri had been killed in a U.S. airstrike in his car in Al-Mastumah in the Syrian province of Idlib.[10] There was no immediate official confirmation from either the United States or al-Qaeda.[6][11] Guardian journalists Tom McCarthy and Martin Chulov later reported that jihadist leaders confirmed that al-Masri was killed in the drone strike.[12] The airstrike also killed another Tahrir al-Sham militant traveling in the car.[2][1] A US intelligence official and al-Qaeda later confirmed that al-Masri had been killed in the strike, which used an experimental Hellfire variant.[13][14][15][16]