A chemist by training, Mr. Masri started in al Qaeda as a bomb maker but branched out into the development of biological and chemical weapons after the terror group settled in Afghanistan in the 1990s. There he was entrusted with part of al Qaeda's so-called yogurt project to develop weapons of mass destruction, and operated a training camp in the village of Derunta. He tried unsuccessfully to develop an anthrax weapon and, with Dr. Zawahri, tried to develop poisons that could kill more quickly by mixing them with chemicals that caused them to be absorbed into the skin more rapidly.
It isn't clear how much of the research bore results, though U.S. authorities said Mr. Masri did gas some dogs at the Derunta training camp. U.S. authorities said he provided hundreds of mujahedeen with hands-on training in the use of poisons and explosives and distributed training manuals showing how to make chemical and biological weapons.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist and professor at Georgetown University in Washington, noted that one of Mr. Masri's students was Kamal Bourgass, who was convicted in 2005 of trying to spread poisons on streets in the U.K. "He had his hands in a lot of different things," Mr. Hoffman said.
One less evil mass killer on the face of the Earth. Courtesy of the US military.
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