Mohammed Atef (Arabic: محمد عاطف, romanized: Muḥammad ʿĀṭif; born Sobhi Abd Al Aziz Mohamed El Gohary Abu Sitta, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri and al-Khabir; 1944 – November 2001) was an Egyptian militant and prominent military chief of al-Qaeda, and a deputy of Osama bin Laden, although Atef's role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years. He was killed in a US airstrike in November 2001.
Atef served two years in the Egyptian Air Force and became an agricultural engineer. He was also a police officer and a member of the group Egyptian Islamic Jihad before he moved to Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion, while operating from Peshawar. He has been credited as having convinced Abdullah Azzam to abandon his life and devote himself to preaching jihad at this time.