Abu Khayr al-Masri, a top al-Qaida lieutenant, was killed in a U.S. drone strike near Idlib, Syria, according to several reports.

Pictures of a destroyed car, which Masri was ostensibly traveling in, were posted Sunday on Twitter. Masri served as the general deputy to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. He was believed to be operating in Syria after being released from Iranian custody in September, 2015.

HUGE news via source: Al-Qaeda deputy leader Abu al-Khayr al-Masri has been killed in a U.S drone strike near Al-Mastoumeh in #Idlib. pic.twitter.com/RORT6sU8Sj — Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) February 26, 2017

The 59-year-old Masri was born in Egypt, beginning his terrorism career as a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He fled Egypt in the mid-1980s, eventually traveling to the Balkans in the 1990s where he fought with other Arabs in the Bosnian war. Masri was considered an explosive expert, and is believed to have been involved in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenyan and Tanzania in 1998. He also spent time in Afghanistan, where he became a close associate of Zawahiri before he was forced to flee to Iran after the U.S. invaded in 2001.

Follow Russ Read on Twitter

Send tips to russ@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.