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U.S. Airstrike Kills Khorasan Group Leader Muhsin al-Fadhli, Pentagon Says

Muhsin al-Fadhli was killed in an airstrike in Syria on July 8. Officials said he was the leader of the terror network.
Image: Muhsin al-Fadhli is seen in an undated photo provided by the U.S. State Department
Muhsin al-Fadhli, seen in an undated photo provided by the U.S. State Department, was killed in an airstrike in Syria, the Pentagon said.U.S. State Department via Reuters
By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube

A man described as a longtime al-Qaeda operative and the leader of the Khorasan Group was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria earlier this month, defense officials said Tuesday.

Muhsin al-Fadhli was killed in a "kinetic strike" in Sarmada, Syria, on July 8, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.

Image: Muhsin al-Fadhli is seen in an undated photo provided by the U.S. State Department
Muhsin al-Fadhli, seen in an undated photo provided by the U.S. State Department, was killed in an airstrike in Syria, the Pentagon said.U.S. State Department via Reuters

"He was a senior al-Qaeda facilitator who was among the few trusted al-Qaeda leaders that received advanced notification of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks," and was involved in a deadly attack that killed a U.S. Marine on Faylaka Island in Kuwait in 2002, Davis said.

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"His death will degrade and disrupt ongoing external operations of al-Qaeda against the United States and our allies and partners."

The July 8 strike was the second attempt to kill Fadhli. A US airstrike thought to have killed Fadhli last September missed the target.

The Khorasan Group has been described as a terror network made up of veteran al-Qaeda operatives, who have taken advantage of the civil war in Syria to lure new recruits and plan attacks on Western interests.

The U.S. had offered a $7 million reward for information leading to the location of the Kuwaiti-born Al-Fadhli — just shy of the $10 million offered for the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghadi, the leader of the terror group ISIS.

Jim Miklaszewski

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News. On 9/11, he was the first at the scene to report that the Pentagon had been attacked and has since led the network's coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

Since joining NBC in 1985, Miklaszewski was a White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, covering President Clinton's transition from Little Rock, his many trips abroad including Moscow and the Middle East and his reelection. He was also an NBC floor reporter at the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1996 and 2000.

In the Bush White House, Miklaszewski reported on the Gulf War with Iraq, summits with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin and the Bush reelection campaign in 1992.

Miklaszewski has logged considerable foreign experience with battlefront coverage of wars in Lebanon, El Salvador and the Falkland Islands. He also covered the United States air raid on Libya, and the "tanker wars" in the Persian Gulf.

Courtney Kube

Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.