Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar ( ar, مدحت مرسي السيد عمر), also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri ( ar, أبو خباب المصري) (29 April 1953,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

– 28 July 2008,

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

) was a chemist and alleged top bomb maker for

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...

and part of

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated ...

's inner circle. The United States had a $5 million bounty on his head. Although reportedly killed in a U.S. attack in January 2006, he survived and intelligence officials believe he went on to attempt to resurrect al-Qaeda's program to develop or obtain

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...

. On 28 July 2008, Mursi was killed in an American

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda activities

Umar is believed by U.S. authorities to have run the infamous

Derunta training camp The Darunta training camp ''(also transliterated as Derunta)'' was one of the most well-known of many military training camps that have been alleged to have been affiliated with al Qaeda. Training with poisons CNN published a story in which t ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

where he is reported to have used dogs and other animals for his

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

s. He is also alleged to have written an explosives manual, and to have personally trained

Richard Reid Richard Colvin Reid (born 12 August 1973), also known as the "Shoe Bomber", is the perpetrator of the failed shoe bombing attempt on a transatlantic flight in 2001. Born to a father who was a career criminal, Reid converted to Islam as a young ...

, the so-called "shoe bomber", as well as Zacarias Moussaoui. The manual is still in use by al-Qaeda operatives today.

Wrong photo

The

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

acknowledged on 26 January 2006 that they had been using a photo of

Abu Hamza al-Masri Mustafa Kamel Mustafa ( ar, مصطفى كامل مصطفى; born 15 April 1958), also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri (; , – literally, father of Hamza, the Egyptian), or simply Abu Hamza, is an Egyptian cleric who was the imam of Finsbury Park ...

in their wanted photo for Midhat Mursi, who shared the similar alias "Abu Khabab al Masri". Mursi's poster at the

Rewards for Justice Program The Rewards for Justice Program (RFJ) is the counterterrorism and counterintelligence platform administered by the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service agency. The Rewards For Justice program is seeking information leading to th ...

was changed to a different photo.

Misreported death

He was reported to have been killed in the

Damadola airstrike On 13 January 2006 the Central Intelligence Agency fired missiles into the Pakistani village of Damadola ( ur, ڈمہ ڈولا) in the Bajaur (Urdu: باجوڑ ) tribal area, about seven kilometres (4.5 miles) from the Afghan border, killing at ...

on 13 January 2006 along with several other al-Qaeda operatives. The target of the strike was

Ayman al-Zawahiri Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (June 19, 1951 – July 31, 2022) was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death. Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with a ...

, al-Qaeda's then-number 2 man. Pakistani intelligence originally confirmed Mursi's death in the airstrike along with al-Zawahiri's alleged son-in-law, Abdul Rehman al-Maghribi, but on 8 September 2007, the ''Washington Post'', citing "U.S. and Pakistani officials", said that all the dead in that raid had been locals.

Death

On 28 July 2008,

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

confirmed al-Masri was killed in a missile strike in

that also killed five other militants including Ibrahim, the son of Ahmad Salama Mabruk.

Family

Mursi's son, Mohammed al-Masri, was born in 1980 in

Aqaba Aqaba (, also ; ar, العقبة, al-ʿAqaba, al-ʿAgaba, ) is the only coastal city in Jordan and the largest and most populous city on the Gulf of Aqaba. Situated in southernmost Jordan, Aqaba is the administrative centre of the Aqaba Govern ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

. He has been associated with the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic ter ...

as well as al-Qaeda, though he has expressed dissatisfaction with the conduct of the former.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mursi, Midhat 1953 births 2008 deaths Assassinated al-Qaeda leaders Egyptian al-Qaeda members Egyptian chemists Deaths by United States drone strikes in Pakistan Egyptian expatriates in Pakistan