Donald Trump confirms al-Qaeda’s ‘underwear bomb’ mastermind Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri killed in Yemen
- Top bomb maker, believed to be behind attempted bombing of US-bound airliner in 2009, was known for ability to create hard-to-detect explosive devices
- Al-Asiri died in US counterterrorism operation in 2017, White House statement says
US President Donald Trump on Thursday confirmed that al-Qaeda’s top bomb maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri – believed to be the mastermind behind the attempted bombing of a US-bound airliner in 2009 – has been killed.
Trump said in a White House statement that al-Asiri was killed in 2017 in a United States counterterrorism operation in Yemen.
US officials said last year they were confident al-Asiri had been killed, but others said at the time that the evidence was not conclusive.
Washington had long sought al-Asiri, a Saudi-born militant with al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch who was known for his ability to create hard-to-detect bombs, including some implanted in suicide bombers.
Al-Asiri is believed to have masterminded the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a passenger plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. A Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is serving multiple life sentences in prison for trying to set off the bomb in his underwear.