US drone attack 'kills al-Qaida top commander'

Word is reportedly "spreading in extremist circles" of the death of Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri in Pakistan's tribal areas in the past two weeks.

Most prominent is an announcement of his death on the Internet by al-Qaida's so-called General Command. Al-Masri has been reported killed before, in 2008, but this is the first time his death has been acknowledged by the militant group.

Al-Masri, also known as Mustafa al-Yazid, was the group's prime conduit to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and he had key to day-to-day control, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning, the US official said.

The official says the death would be a major blow to al-Qaida, which in December "lost both its internal and external operations chiefs".

Al-Masri has been one of many targets in a US Predator drone campaign aimed at militants in Pakistan since President Barack Obama took office. The Egyptian-born militant made no secret of his contempt for the United States, once calling it "the evil empire leading crusades against the Muslims".

The shadowy, 55-year-old al-Masri has been involved with Islamic extremist movements for nearly 30 years since he joined radical student groups led by fellow Egyptian al-Zawahiri, now the number two figure in al-Qaida after bin Laden.

In the early 1980s, al-Yazid served three years in an Egyptian prison for purported links to the group responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

After his release, al-Masri turned up in Afghanistan, where, according to al Qaida's propaganda wing Al-Sabah, he became a founding member of the terrorist group.

He later followed bin Laden to Sudan and back to Afghanistan, where he served as al Qaida's chief financial officer, managing secret bank accounts in the Persian Gulf that were used to help finance the 9/11 attacks.

After the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, al-Masri went into hiding for years. He surfaced in May 2007 during a 45-minute interview posted on the web by Al-Sabah, in which he was introduced as the "official in charge" of the terrorist movement's operations in Afghanistan.

Some security analysts believe the choice of al-Masri as the Afghan chief may have signalled a new approach for al Qaida in the country where it once reigned supreme.

In August 2008, Pakistani military officials claimed al-Masri had been killed in fighting in the Bajaur tribal area along the Afghan border. However, he turned up in subsequent al Qaida videos made after the Bajaur fighting.

n The World Cup faces no terror threat at the moment, according to South Africa's police minister Nathi Mthethwa, who dismissed speculation about plots by groups ranging from al-Qaida to homegrown white militants.

South African investigators went to Iraq after security forces there said they had arrested an alleged al-Qaida militant who had talked to friends about attacking the World Cup. Mr Mthethwa said it was unlikely that groups like al-Qaida had the capacity to carry out a major attack in South Africa.