DUSHANBE, November 7, 2014, Asia-Plus — The United States said it conducted air strikes on Wednesday night against the so-called Khorasan group, an al Qaeda-linked militant faction based in Syria, and said the group was plotting to attack Europe or the United States.
According to Reuters, U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a target of the strike was David Drugeon, a French-born militant and convert to Islam who some U.S. officials say is a bomb maker for the group.
General Lloyd Austin, the head of the U.S. military”s Central Command, said Drugeon was one of the group”s “leadership elements and one of the most dangerous elements in that organization.”
He declined to say whether Drugeon was killed, telling a forum in Washington the military was assessing the results of the strikes. Asked whether Drugeon was a target, he said, “Any time we can take their leadership out is a good thing.”
The officials reportedly said they believed a leader of the Khorasan group, Muhsin al-Fadhli, who had been targeted in U.S. strikes in Syria in September, was still alive. It was unclear whether al-Fadhli was a target of the latest U.S. raid.
In a statement on November 6, U.S. Central Command said the latest strikes were carried out by the U.S. military against five Khorasan targets near Sarmada in Idlib province, close to the Turkish border and west of the Syrian city of Aleppo.
U.S. officials have described Khorasan as a grouping of skilled al Qaeda veterans who moved to Syria from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and set up operations under the protection of Nusra Front, the main Syrian al Qaeda affiliate.
The US CENTCOM statement notes that the Khorasan Group is a term used to refer to a network of Nusrah Front and al-Qa”ida core extremists who share a history of training operatives, facilitating fighters and money, and planning attacks against U.S. and Western targets.
