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Associated Press
CAIRO
Yemeni officials and a tribal leader say al-Qaida's chief bomb maker behind the 2009 Christmas Day plot to down an airliner over Detroit was killed months ago by a U.S. drone strike.
A Yemeni security official said that Ibrahim al-Asiri is dead; a tribal leader and an al-Qaida-linked source also said that he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in the eastern Yemeni governorate of Marib.
The tribal leader said that al-Asiri was struck, along with two or three of his associates, as he stood beside his car.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief reporters.
A U.N. report published in late July said al-Asiri may have been killed in the second half of 2017.
The U.S. designated al-Asiri as a terrorist in 2011
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