(MENAFN- The Peninsula) A top Tunisian jihadist was killed by a US airstrike in Libya last month, The New York Times reported Friday.

The jihadist, Seifallah Ben Hassine, also known as Abu Ayadh, was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants and the leader of the outlawed group Ansar al-Shariah in Tunisia.

He listed as a "global terrorist" by the US, was killed in mid-June in an airstrike that targeted a top Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist, the paper said.

Ben Hassine is believed to have coordinated a string of assassinations, including the killing of famed Afghan anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Masood in 2001.Tunisian officials also accused the leader of the banned Ansar al-Sharia group of directing the killings of two secular Tunisian politicians in 2013, the paper reported.