Osama bin Laden's 'ambassador to Italy' killed by drone The strikes arouse intense public and political anger in Pakistan. However, the military has apparently never attempted to prevent drones entering its air space and an American diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks suggests Islamabad has given permission for the attacks. El-Sayed, who was also known as Abu Saleh al-Masri, is the latest high-profile militant death. He emerged as a senior figure in Egyptian Islamic Jihad and followed Zawahiri when he merged the movement with al-Qaeda in the 1990s. His name appears on US and UN terror blacklists and he was convicted in absentia for the massacre in Luxor, when 62 people - mostly tourists - were shot dead by gunmen. He was also sent to Italy to overhaul al-Qaeda's Milan cell in 1998, where he was monitored by local intelligence agents, moving to Afghanistan two months before 9/11. His martyrdom statement, translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, said he led bands of al-Qaeda fighters. "After he reached Waziristan, he took charge of the [Angoor Ada] front in Afghanistan, and Allah granted him success in inflicting grave damage to the Crusader enemy, and he had many jihadi activities and actions," the martyrdom statement said.