The alleged leader of al-Qaeda’s Khorasan Group was killed in an air strike by the US-led coalition in northern Syria, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. The “kinetic strike” killed Muhsin al-Fadhli on July 8 while he was traveling in a vehicle near Sarmada, Syria, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.
He did not confirm whether a drone or a manned aircraft had killed Fadhli.Fadhli was allegedly the leader of the Khorasan Group, a group of senior al-Qaeda members who have traveled from Central Asia and elsewhere in the Middle East to Syria to plot attacks on the West.
Officials say Khorasan is part of al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Al-Nusra Front, though experts and activists cast doubt on the distinction between the two groups. Fadhli “was a senior al-Qaeda facilitator who was among the few trusted al-Qaeda leaders who received advance notification of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States,” said Captain Jeff Davis, a Defence Department spokesman.