On the night of August 7, residents of a middle-class neighborhood in northern Tehran heard shooting. Some of them rushed out to see what had happened.

Slumped in a white Renault was a middle-aged man and a younger woman. Both were dead. At least four shots had been fired at them; another had hit a passing car. The two assailants had been on a motorbike, according to Iranian news agencies.

And there the story rested, until a flurry of activity on obscure social media accounts in mid-October, claiming that the victims were not Lebanese, but rather one of the most important figures in al Qaeda — Abu Mohammed al-Masri — and his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza.

On Friday, a senior counterterrorism official told CNN “that Abu Muhammad al-Masri is probably dead.”

The New York Times has cited unnamed officials as saying Israel carried out the attack.

Read More →