US Airstrike Said to Kill Saudi Leader of al Qaeda Offshoot in Syria

An airstrike by the US-led coalition has killed Sanafi al-Nasr, a Saudi citizen and the leader of an al Qaeda offshoot called the Khorasan Group, a Pentagon spokesman said on Sunday.

The Pentagon said al-Nasr organized routes for new recruits to travel from Pakistan to Syria through Turkey and played a significant role in the group's finances. He was killed in an airstrike on Thursday in northwest Syria, it said.

"Al-Nasr was a longtime jihadist experienced in funneling money and fighters for al Qaeda. He moved funds from donors in the Gulf region into Iraq and then to al Qaeda leaders from Pakistan to Syria," the Pentagon spokesman said in a statement.

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Al-Nasr worked for al Qaeda's Iran-based network before taking charge of the militant group's finances in 2012 and moving to Syria in 2013, the Pentagon said.

He was the fifth senior Khorasan Group leader killed in the last four months, it said.

"This operation deals a significant blow to the Khorasan Group's plans to attack the United States and our allies, and once again proves that those who seek to do us harm are not beyond our reach," Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said in a statement.

The shadowy Khorasan Group was virtually unheard of prior to last September, when American officials declared that it might pose a more direct threat to the United States than the Islamic State. The group is reportedly tied to al Qaeda's central command and its Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Some critics, including Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept, have claimed that the Khorasan Group was a "wholesale concoction" used by the US government to justify airstrikes in Syria.

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The US has continued targeting alleged members of the Khorasan Group over the past year, however, suggesting that it exists at least in some form. John Horgan, director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told VICE News last year that the sudden rise in profile of the Khorasan Group shows how little is publicly known about the inner workings of al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"Our inability to critically and reliably assess these groups is, I think, a sign of just how simplistic and jingoistic our understanding of them really is," Horgan said. "It might also be a more simple reflection of our tendency to offer commentary based on next to no information."

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