Al-Qaida 'July 7' chief dies in Pakistan

The al-Qaida leader thought to be behind London’s July 7 bombings has died in hiding in Pakistan.

Abu Ubaida al-Masri, believed to have helped recruit, train and direct the British Muslims who killed themselves and 52 people on tubes and a bus three years ago, apparently succumbed to hepatitis.

A report in the US 'San Jose Mercury' newspaper said the Egyptian’s death was revealed by US counter-terrorism officials.

Masri’s death undermines Pakistan’s rejection of claims that al-Qaida’s leadership has been directing terrorist plots from inside the border region’s safe havens of mountains and rugged valleys.

Masri escaped two attempts to kill him in the region. The first was an American missile in the village of Damadola.

Eighteen people, including four al-Qaida operatives and women and children, died, but Masri was not there.

In the second failed attempt, Pakistani helicopters attacked a religious school in Damadola in October 2006, killing more than 80 people, but not Masri.

The 'Los Angeles Times' reported last week that Masri taught bomb-making techniques to would-be suicide bombers in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal agency and that police in Denmark prevented one of his students from carrying out an attack last year.

Masri became a senior al-Qaida operative for international terrorist operations after fighting in Bosnia and Chechnya and then serving as a military instructor in an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.