U.S. military aircraft have again hit targets in Syria belonging to the Khorasan group in response to what officials say was renewed concern that the al Qaeda faction was planning a terrorist attack on a Western target.
Wednesday’s strikes reportedly killed a top bombmaker for the group, which is based among another al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.
“We are still assessing the outcome of the attack, but have initial indications that it resulted in the intended effects by striking terrorists and destroying or severely damaging several Khorasan group vehicles and buildings assessed to be meeting and staging areas, IED-making facilities and training facilities,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement Thursday.
“This network was plotting to attack in Europe or the homeland, and we took decisive action to protect our interests and remove their capability to act.”
Media reports, quoting unnamed U.S. officials, said a drone used in the attacks killed David Drugeon, a French national considered a top bomb-maker for the Khorasan group. Drugeon, 24, also reportedly was a former French intelligence agent who defected to al Qaeda, though other reports have cast doubt on the claim.
The strikes were in the vicinity of Sarmada, a town on the Turkish border in northern Idlib province, where al-Nusra fighters had recently routed U.S.-backed moderate rebels and were fighting to cut off their lifeline to Turkey.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said the strikes also targeted an al-Nusra heaquarters nearby in Harim, killing two children, and the headquarters of another group, Ahrar al-Sham, near the Turkish border.
Central Command officials said the strikes were not a bid to support the moderate rebels against al-Nusra or in response to the recent fighting in Idlib, despite calls for the U.S. to aid the rebels before they are destroyed.
One of the key elements of the administration’s plan for Syria is to arm and train moderate rebels to complement the air assault on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that began in September. But the training program hasn’t started, and the rebel groups on which the plan depends are being crushed between the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Islamist extremists. Observers and rebel leaders say the U.S.-led bombing campaign has made it easier for its enemies to gang up on them.
Despite recent setbacks for the moderate rebels, President Obama and other officials have rejected calls to move faster to bring new forces to bear against the Islamic State or to confront Assad directly.
“Our focus in Syria is not to solve the entire Syria situation, but rather to isolate the areas in which [the Islamic State] can operate,” Obama said Wednesday.
“And what we’re trying to do is to find a core group that we can work with that we have confidence in, that we’ve vetted, that can help in regaining territory from [the Islamic State], and then ultimately serve as a responsible party to sit at the table in eventual political negotiations that are probably some ways off in the future.
“That’s always been difficult.”
