U.S. Investigating Reported Death of Khorasan Leader
By David Lerman
Sep 29, 2014 6:25 AM ET
Photographer: Ahmed Hasan Ubeyd/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A Syrian man inspects the rubble of a destroyed building following U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in northern Syria, on Sept. 25, 2014
The U.S. is investigating reports on social media that the leader of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Khorasan Group was killed in an American airstrike in Syria.
Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said there are “serious indicators” that Muhsin al-Fadhli may have been killed in last week’s strikes, when the U.S. fired Tomahawk missiles in a nighttime offensive west of Aleppo.
“We can’t confirm it,” Blinken said today on the “Fox News Sunday” program. “We’re obviously trying to dig into this, get confirmation. We want to make sure that he’s not trying to, in effect, fake his death and go underground. But there are serious indicators he was removed.”
Twitter accounts of alleged al-Qaeda members monitored by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks terrorist activity, have included postings suggesting al-Fadhli was killed. One such posting, by Twitter handle mh4444, said he was “martyred today in Syria by the U.S. bombing.”
No photos purported to be of al-Fadhli’s corpse have been posted on such accounts. Intelligence analysts in the U.S. and other countries don’t consider postings on social media sites to be reliable sources of information.
On the same night that the U.S. joined Arab nations in an air offensive against Islamic State extremists in Syria, the U.S. launched a separate strike against the Khorasan Group based on what it described as intelligence showing the al-Qaeda cell was in the process of plotting an “imminent” terrorist attack, either in the U.S. or in Europe. The Obama administration has provided no further details on the alleged plot.
‘Be Significant’
Killing the group’s leader “would be significant,” Blinken said, “in terms of taking away some of their command and control, the leadership, the direction that they have.”
Some U.S. intelligence officials say the significance of killing any single terrorist leader can be overstated.
The Khorasan Group was established after the U.S. killed al-Qaeda’s founder, Osama bin Laden, they said on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
The group once known as al-Qaeda in Iraq morphed into what is now called Islamic State after the killing of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006, they said.
Even so, the U.S. has long been seeking to kill or capture al-Fadhli. In 2012, the State Department advertised a $7 million reward for information on him.
“Al-Fadhli was among the few trusted al-Qaeda leaders who received advance notification that terrorists would strike the United States on September 11, 2001,” according to a State Department notice.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Laurie Asseo, Gail DeGeorge
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