[5][6] He was wanted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

On 14 November 2020, The New York Times reported that Abdullah had been killed on 7 August 2020 in Tehran, Iran, by Israeli Mossad operatives at the request of the United States.

Abdullah was responsible for forging a passport for Mohammed Saddiq Odeh so he could get from Pakistan to Afghanistan and meet Osama bin Laden before the bombings of US embassies on 7 August 1998 in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others.

[12][13] A New York Times source said he remained in Tehran, living under the protection of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and later the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

[15] The New York Times reported on 14 November 2020 that Abdullah, while driving his car in the Pasdaran neighborhood of Tehran, Iran, on 7 August 2020, was shot to death by Israeli Mossad operatives from Kidon, a unit informally known as the "Tip of the Spear",[16] on a motorcycle, at the behest of the United States.

[18] Iranian news sources at the time of his death claimed the identities of the dead pair to be of a Lebanese academic by the name of "Habib Dawood", who had ties to Hezbollah, and his daughter.

"[21] “This exposes the regime in Iran as one that provides a haven for the organization that's most significant to the United States,” said a former senior defense official.