Al Qaeda’s chief bombmaker is believed to have been killed in an ambush by U.S- backed special forces in Yemen.

A 4×4 vehicle, believed to be carrying Ibrahim al-Asiri, 32, mastermind of the ‘underwear bomb plot’, was engaged in a gun battle with special forces, dropped in by helicopter.

Witnesses have described seeing soldiers take up position in the road, waiting for the vehicle to pass before opening fire.

Those inside managed to shoot back, but all inside were reportedly killed as their car was pelted with bullets, The Times reports.

Troops took sniffer dogs with them as they identified those inside and later confirmed one was a ‘high value militant’. If al -Asiri is confirmed as among the dead, he would be the most senior al Qaeda member to be killed since Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

Al-Asiri is believed to be behind a range of explosive devices including pant bombs and liquid explosive implants which contain no metal parts making them virtually undetectable.

He was said to be the mastermind of the Christmas Day bomb plot, when a Nigerian man attempted unsuccessfully to detonate a device aboard a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. He has also been linked to the cargo planes bomb plot in which explosive ink cartridges were intercepted at airports in the East Midlands in the UK and Dubai en route from Yemen to the United States.

On Saturday and Sunday, several air strikes – thought to be carried out chiefly by U.S. drones – were launched on central and southern provinces of Yemen.

It is thought that the operation was launched from a undisclosed desert air base in eastern Saudi Arabia, close to the Yemeni border.

 

It said three of those killed were leading members of al Qaeda. Yemen said 10 al Qaeda militants were killed in Saturday’s attack.

A senior security source said investigations were being carried out into the identities of those killed, but confirmed that ‘leaders in the organisation’ had died.

It is believed that those killed also include Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi.

Witness Obeid Awad said: ‘Minutes after the car (with militants) was hit, we saw helicopters hovering overhead and military cars spreading. Soldiers were seen disembarking from one of the helicopters. After they left, we found the struck car but we could not find any body parts.’

Local and tribal sources over the weekend said unmanned drones had been circling for days prior to the attacks.

Yemen is among a handful of countries where Washington acknowledges using drones, though it does not comment publicly on the practice.

Faris al-Saqqaf, an advisor to the Yemeni president, said that Yemeni fighter MiG-29s joined in the operation in Shabwa.

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