US President Donald Trump confirmed Thursday a senior al-Qaeda bomb maker and terrorist coordinator was killed two years ago in a counterterrorism operation in Yemen, Anadolu Agency reports.
“[Ibrahim] Al-Asiri built explosive devices that were used in the failed Christmas Day 2009 underwear bomb attack and the disrupted printer cartridge bomb plot in 2010,” Trump said in a White House statement. “He also built an explosive device intended to be used against a passenger aircraft in 2012, and the device used in the attempted assassination of the former Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.”
The president said al-Asiri’s death “significantly handicapped” al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
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“The United States will continue to hunt down terrorists like al-Asiri until they no longer pose a threat to our great Nation,” he concluded.
Last year, US officials said they were confident al-Asiri had been killed during the strike without having conclusive evidence.
The US administration had long sought al-Asiri, who made a name for himself because of his ability to create hard-to-detect bombs.