Death of Al Qaeda Number Three Is End of An Era

June 1, 2010 — -- The death of Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid, al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan, is one of the most significant blows to al Qaeda under the Obama administration, and brings to an end an era of jihad.

The death of Abu al Yazid, a key figure in the 9-11 attacks who was considered al Qaeda's number three leader, removes one of the organization's best-trained veterans from the field. It deprives Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, of one of their few remaining close confidants, and forces al Qaeda to turn to younger, less experienced leaders.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, also known as Sheikh Sa'id, was killed late on May 21 in a CIA drone attack in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to residents of the village where he died.

Al Qaeda released a statement yesterday that eulogized al Yazid, calling him a martyr and praising his three-decade career fighting in multiple jihads. The statement said that Yazid's wife, three daughters and a granddaughter died with him; residents say the four missiles that hit the compound where he was staying also killed three Arabs and nine locals, but make no mention of Yazid's relations.

Since 9/11, American military and counterterrorism forces have killed or captured hundreds of al Qaeda operatives, including the man often cited as the original "number three," Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. A senior U.S. official told ABC News that being al Qaeda's number three is "the most dangerous job in the world."

But of the multiple "number three's" who the U.S. has killed, Yazid was the most important, not just because of personal relationships with Zawahiri and bin Laden going back decades. According to a U.S. official, it's also because Yazid has been one of the most "dangerous" members of al Qaeda. "He was a very unpleasant guy," said the official. "He's had a hand or a role in every major thing that the group has done to us or our allies in the last 9 years."

Since 2007, Yazid has been al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan, brought into that position after al Qaeda's relationship with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, had cooled. An Egyptian, Yazid was an early member of Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. When Zawahiri's group merged with bin Laden's group to make the present day al Qaeda, Yazid became a founding member of al Qaeda.

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He joined bin Laden in Afghanistan during the 1980s, having fled Egypt after being released from prison in Cairo, where he served three years for his purported connection to the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.