Mustafa Abu al-Yazid,al-Qaedas chief financier and the outfits number 3 leader who in February 2009 threatened India with more Mumbai-style attacks if it targeted Pakistan,has been killed in a US missile strike. An al-Qaeda statement put out on jihadist web sites,and translated by the SITE intelligence group which monitors such forums,said Yazid,also known as Said al-Masri,was killed along with his entire family and several others in the tribal areas of Pakistan at some time in the past two weeks. The New York Times quoted an unnamed Pakistani intelligence official as saying on Tuesday that Yazid was killed on May 22 in a drone attack on the village of Boya,16 miles west of Miranshah,the main town of North Waziristan. Yazid was al-Qaedas overall commander in Afghanistan and Pakistan,the official said. US intelligence analysts described Yazids death as the hardest blow so far to al-Qaeda,and a major setback to its ability to plan and support attacks against American and allied forces in Afghanistan. In terms of counterterrorism,this would be a big victory, NYT quoted an American official as saying. Al-Masri was al-Qaedas chief operating officer,with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning. He was also the organizations prime conduit to (the organisations number 1 and 2) Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Yazid,54,was formally introduced to the jihadist online community on May 26,2007,and had since appeared in numerous video releases from as-Sahab,the media arm of al-Qaeda. Three months after the 26/11 terror strikes,he appeared in a video sent to the BBC in Islamabad,saying India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan. The Mujahideen will sunder your armies into the ground,like they did to the Russians in Afghanistan. They will target your economic centres and raze them to the ground, he said in Arabic in the 20-minute video. In December 2009,soon after the suicide bombing in Khost,Afghanistan,in which seven CIA operatives and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed,Yazid issued a statement praising the bomber,Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi,and said the bombing was revenge for CIA drone attacks. The al-Qaeda message announcing Yazids death did not give details of how he died other than to say he had attained martyrdom,and threatening that his death will only be a severe curse on the life of the infidels. The response is near. Yazid had been reported killed earlier in an airstrike in Pakistan in August 2008,but he had re-emerged and resumed his operations. Yazid,an Egyptian with close links with his countryman al-Zawahiri,was a former member of the Islamic Jihad in Egypt,and had served time in jail over the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. He was a co-founder of al-Qaeda who went into hiding after 9/11,surfacing only in 2007. He spoke fluent Pashto,was very close to Taliban chief Mullah Omar,and wanted the al-Qaeda and Taliban to work together at every level. The Los Angeles Times,quoting the FBI,said it was Yazid who transferred funds via Dubai for 9/11 hijackers Mohammad Atta,Marwan al Shehri and Wali al Shehri.
