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Leader of Qaeda Cell in Syria, Muhsin al-Fadhli, Is Killed in Airstrike, U.S. Says Leader of Qaeda Cell in Syria, Muhsin al-Fadhli, Is Killed in Airstrike, U.S. Says
(about 2 hours later)
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that the leader of the Khorasan Group, a shadowy militant cell in Syria, was killed in an airstrike in Syria this month. A military drone strike has killed the leader of a shadowy Qaeda cell in Syria that American officials say is plotting attacks against the United States and Europe, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday.
Even as the United States has shifted its attention to the Islamic State and away from Al Qaeda, counterterrorism officials say Khorasan — which is made up of senior Qaeda operatives — has emerged in the past year or so as the cell in Syria that may be the most intent on attacking the United States or its installations overseas. The leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, was killed in a July 8 strike while traveling in a vehicle near Sarmada, in northwestern Syria, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement. Mr. Fadhli was a senior Qaeda operative who, according to the State Department, was so close to Osama bin Laden that he was among a small group of people who knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks before they were launched.
The Pentagon said “a kinetic strike” had killed the group’s leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, who, according to the State Department, was so close to Osama bin Laden that he was among a small group of people who knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks before they were launched. Even as the United States has shifted its main counterterrorism focus to the Islamic State from Al Qaeda in the past year, intelligence officials say the group that Mr. Fadhli led, known as Khorasan, has emerged as the cell in Syria that may be the most intent on and capable of striking the United States or its Western allies with an organized terrorist attack.
There is scant public information about the Khorasan Group, which has been described by several intelligence, law enforcement and military officials as being made up of members of Al Qaeda from across the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. Members of the cell are said to be particularly interested in devising terrorist plots using concealed explosives. There is little public information about the Khorasan group, which American officials say is made up of about two dozen seasoned Qaeda operatives from the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa who were sent to Syria by Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader in Pakistan. Embedded within the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the Khorasan operatives were to recruit Europeans and Americans whose passports allow them to travel on American-bound jetliners with less scrutiny from security officials.
“This is a significant blow to Al Qaeda’s top terror team,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. analyst who is now at the Brookings Institution. “Ayman Zawahri created the Khorasan group to bring together the best operatives from across Al Qaeda to Syria to target the West, and now their leader is apparently dead.”
Unlike the Islamic State and other jihadist groups that have come to prominence in recent years, the cell that Mr. Fadhli, 34, came to lead has avoided the spotlight. It puts out no slick Internet magazines and does not boast of its plans on Twitter.
According to classified United States intelligence assessments, the Khorasan militants have been working with bomb makers from Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to test new ways to slip nonmetallic explosives past airport security. Officials fear that the Khorasan militants could provide these sophisticated explosives to their Western recruits, who could sneak them onto United States-bound flights.
Last July, the Transportation Security Administration decided to ban uncharged mobile phones and laptops from flights to the United States that originated in Europe and the Middle East after picking up intelligence about the collaboration between the Qaeda operatives in Syria and Yemen.
The first time President Obama publicly mentioned the Khorasan group was last September, when he announced that he had ordered an airstrike against it to disrupt what American officials said was a terrorist plot aimed at the West. American officials later acknowledged that the plotting by Khorasan was “aspirational” and said that no concrete plan seemed to be in the works.
Still, American counterterrorism officials insist that Khorasan remains a major threat. Its existence demonstrates that Al Qaeda’s main leadership in Pakistan’s tribal areas can still threaten the West, despite the damage done to the organization by years of drone strikes.
“While the threat they pose will persist, the loss of Muhsin’s leadership and experience is a real setback for the group,” said Matthew G. Olsen, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
The United States military has periodically targeted Khorasan as part of its air campaign in Syria, beginning with eight strikes last September.
Some opponents of the Syrian government, however, have expressed skepticism about the existence of the Khorasan group, saying that the United States had created it to justify strikes on Islamist rebels.
The paucity of public information about the group makes it hard to draw firm conclusions about its ultimate goals. Intelligence officials and terrorism experts believe that the group, although based in Syria, answers ultimately to Mr. Zawahri and Al Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan. Its size has seemed to fluctuate, they say, but it has consisted of about two dozen operatives, most of whom went to Syria from Pakistan and Afghanistan beginning in 2012.
Once they arrived in Syria, members of the group established contacts with fighters from the Nusra Front, one of several groups that formed in recent years to fight the government of President Bashar al-Assad. While the Nusra Front remains primarily committed to fighting government troops for territory in Syria’s vicious civil war, analysts said, the Khorasan group’s focus is on external attacks.
Mr. Fadhli had been tracked by American intelligence agencies for at least a decade. According to the State Department, before Mr. Fadhli arrived in Syria, he had been living in Iran as part of a small group of Qaeda operatives who had fled to the country from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. Iran’s government said the group was living under house arrest, but the exact situation of the Qaeda operatives was disputed for years, and many members of the group ultimately left Iran for Pakistan, Syria and other countries.
In 2012, the State Department identified Mr. Fadhli as Al Qaeda’s leader in Iran, directing “the movement of funds and operatives” through the country. A $7 million reward was offered for information leading to his capture. The same State Department release said he was working with wealthy “jihadist donors” in Kuwait, his native country, to raise money for Qaeda-allied rebels in Syria.
In a speech in Brussels in 2005, President George W. Bush referred to Mr. Fadhli as he thanked European countries for their counterterrorism assistance, noting that Mr. Fadhli had aided terrorists who bombed a French oil tanker in 2002 off the coast of Yemen. That attack killed one person and spilled 50,000 barrels of oil that stretched across 45 miles of coastline.