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 The strikes early on Tuesday on what Washington called the
Khorasan Group, so shadowy that U.S. officials had barely uttered
its name in public, were staged to disrupt a plot against U.S. or
European targets that the Pentagon said was "nearing the execution
phase."
The U.S. objective may also have been to take out the leader of the
cell, Kuwaiti-born Mohsin al-Fadhli, a reputed former member of
Osama bin Laden’s inner circle.
Despite Islamist posts on social media mourning Fadhli's death,
there was no confirmation that he was among the dozens reported
killed in the bombing raids in northwestern Syria.
The strikes followed lengthy surveillance of Khorasan, described by
U.S. officials as a "network" of seasoned al Qaeda fighters with
battlefield experience mostly in Pakistan and Afghanistan and now
working in league with al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front.
The al Qaeda veterans have used the chaos of Syria’s civil war as
cover to try to devise new hard-to-detect bombs and recruit foreign
militants holding Western passports to return home and eventually
carry out attacks, U.S. officials said.
The Islamic State, which also has al Qaeda roots and flourished
during Syria's civil war, has pressed a brutal campaign to establish
an Islamic caliphate centered in parts of Syria and Iraq, but is not
seen by Washington as an immediate threat outside the region.
U.S. officials said the small Khorasan group, on the other hand, has
pursued the singular goal of plotting bombings in the United States
and Europe.
"These are al Qaeda veterans who have established a safe haven in
Syria to develop and plan external attacks, in addition to construct
and test improvised explosive devices and to recruit Westerners for
external operations," a senior U.S. official said.
Concern about such plots prompted U.S. authorities to order tighter
airport screening for flights to the United States in July, the
official said. Airlines were asked to give closer scrutiny to
passengers' cellphones and shoes, apparently fearing they could be
used to conceal explosives.
AIR STRIKES "QUITE EFFECTIVE"
After Tuesday’s air strikes, the Pentagon said it was still
assessing how badly Khorasan had been hit, but a senior U.S.
official said the bombing was “quite effective.”
Islamist militants on social media said there were unconfirmed
reports that 33-year-old Fadhli had been killed and they were
mourning him. But the U.S. official said, "We don't have
confirmation on that leadership target."
Fadhli, according to a 2012 State Department notice that offered a
$7 million reward for information on his whereabouts, was an al
Qaeda financier close to bin Laden and among the few who knew in
advance about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Still, U.S. officials have offered few details about the group
except to say it was planning an "imminent attack." They declined to
provide details about the timing.
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Its very existence was only acknowledged publicly on Thursday when
U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told an
intelligence conference that Khorasan may pose as great a threat to
the United States as Islamic State.
Some Islamists contacted by Reuters in Syria did not seem to
consider Khorasan a separate group, regarding its members as part of
Nusra, one of the major forces fighting to overthrow Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad.
Khorasan is the Islamic term for an area including parts of Pakistan
and Afghanistan, where al Qaeda’s main council is believed to be in
hiding.
"We are not sure what group they are talking about,” one Islamist
source in Syria told Reuters. “They are probably making a
distinction between Khorasan leaders and others, but this is only a
Western term. For us this is all empty words.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in
Syria, said at least 50 fighters and eight civilians were killed in
strikes in northern Aleppo and Idlib provinces on Tuesday.
U.S. officials said those attacks had targeted Khorasan, but Syrian
sources said the strikes hit Nusra sites. The Observatory said most
of the Nusra fighters killed were not Syrians.
U.S. officials insisted that while Khorasan has worked with Nusra on
some activities, the smaller group is tied into the main al Qaeda
network, which is run by Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor,
and is not pursuing the fight against Assad.
“The Khorasan Group includes ... core al Qaeda operatives from
Afghanistan and Pakistan who made their way to Syria," Ben Rhodes,
Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters.
"And we have been monitoring over the course of many months the
development of plotting against the United States or Western targets
emanating from Syria," he said.
(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Warren
Strobel, Susan Heavey and Phil Stewart in Washington and Mariam
Karouny in Beirut; Editing by David Storey, Toni Reinhold)
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