This just in: Abu Ubaida al-Masri is officially abu U-be-a DEAD

Oh, happy day.

And yes, he is the man who brought us (or tried to)

The 2005 Subway Bombings and the 2006 Airline Bombing plot.

More on al-Masri, the "stocky Egyptian bomb expert with two fingers missing". (okay, that made me laugh.) It appears that the third time was a charm!

Masri reportedly escaped two attempts to kill him in the region. The first was a January 2006 missile strike by unmanned U.S. aircraft in the village of Damadola. Ayman al-Zawahri, Al-Qaida's No. 2, was also believed to be in the village at the time.

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 before the 2001 U.S. intervention, the Los Angles Times reported.

He then served as Al-Qaida's senior commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the U.S. counterterrorism official.

I am now happy to report that he is currently someplace in hell nibbling away at his 72 Raisins.

Update: Eye on the World is reporting that he died of natural causes, possibly hepatitis.

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