The head of the radical al-Qaeda offshoot who was credited with converting and radicalising the British extremist known as "Jihadi John" has been killed in a United States airstrike, the Pentagon announced.
Mohsin al-Fadhli, the leader of the Khorasan Group and a long-time high-value US terror target with a US$7 million bounty on his head, was killed on July 8 when a vehicle he was travelling in near Sarmada in northwestern Syria was struck by US missiles.
As a close former confidant of Osama bin Laden, al-Fadhli was "among the few trusted al-Qaeda leaders that received advanced notification of the September 11, 2001, attacks", according to a Pentagon spokesman.
The Khorasan Group was formed out of a cadre of al-Qaeda operatives who were sent from Pakistan to Syria to plot attacks on the West. Officials say the Khorasan Group is part of the al-Nusra front, Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate.
It emerged earlier this year that al-Fadhli had been personally instrumental in turning Mohammed Emwazi - or "Jihadi John" - into the bloodthirsty executioner who appeared in several gruesome Isis (Islamic State) videos beheading Western hostages.
