U.S.: Khorasan Group was plotting attacks in U.S., Europe

Combined News Services

WASHINGTON -- Islamic terrorists known as the Khorasan Group were near "the execution phase" of plots in the United States and Europe when President Barack Obama ordered airstrikes against them as part of the start of bombing in Syria, a senior administration official said yesterday.

Khorasan operates out of Syria to exploit the safe haven created by the 3-year-old civil war there and has recruited Westerners who can blend in easily in their home countries, said the official, who requested anonymity in discussing intelligence information.

Intelligence showed the group was in the final stages of plotting attacks, most likely an attempt to blow up an airplane in flight. Months ago, the administration amended security practices on U.S.-bound airliners in response to intelligence about the group, officials said.

Khorasan is made up of "seasoned veterans" of al-Qaida who previously lived and worked together, mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to administration officials. Officials say the group uses bomb-making experts from the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen and aims to target the United States and other Western nations.

U.S. intelligence officials say the group has been seeking to perfect explosives that can fool Western airport security measures, such as a bomb in a toothpaste tube.

The United States launched more than 20 Tomahawk cruise missiles and other ordinance against eight Khorasan Group targets near Aleppo in northwestern Syria, Pentagon officials said. It's not clear yet whether the group's leader, identified by U.S. officials as Muhsin al-Fadhli, was killed in the strikes. He is a Kuwaiti who spent time in Iran and has long been identified as a significant figure in al-Qaida.

One member of Congress said the administration had been briefing lawmakers about Khorasan for "quite some time" and called the group "a proximate threat."

"They're highly motivated; they have skilled people," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

The attacks add Syria to a long list of nations in which the Obama administration has taken lethal action against al-Qaida militants, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.