A Saudi militant believed killed in the U.S. drone strike in Yemen constructed the bombs for the al-Qaida branch's most notorious attempted attacks -- including the underwear-borne explosives intended to a down a U.S. aircraft, and a bomb carried by his own brother intended to assassinate a Saudi prince.The death of Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri would make the Friday drone strikes on a convoy in the central deserts of Yemen one of the most effective single blows in the U.S. campaign to take out al-Qaida's top figures.
The strike also killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric who had been key to recruiting for the militant group and a Pakistani-American, Samir Khan, who was a top English-language propagandist.
But Christopher Boucek, a scholar who studies Yemen and al-Qaida, said al-Asiri's death would "overshadow" that of the two Americans due to his operational importance to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based group that is considered the most active branch of the terror network.