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U.S. airstrikes target al-Qaeda faction in Syria U.S. airstrikes target al-Qaeda faction in Syria
(about 11 hours later)
BEIRUT — The United States expanded its air campaign in Syria on Thursday as U.S. warplanes targeted an al-Qaeda-linked militant group believed to be plotting attacks against Western sites. U.S. warplanes launched airstrikes in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border early Thursday, targeting a group other than the Islamic State for only the second time since the air campaign in the country began and threatening to draw Washington deeper into Syria’s multilayered conflicts.
The airstrikes also could draw Washington deeper into Syria’s multi-layered conflicts by possibly spilling over into rebel factions seeking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. Central Command said five strikes were conducted specifically against the al-Qaeda-linked Khorasan group using manned aircraft and drones. There were unconfirmed reports that a French bombmaker with the group was among those killed.
But U.S. officials stressed that the airstrikes — by warplanes and drones — sought only to hit a specific extremist faction that Washington calls the Khorasan group, which was believed to be organizing possible attacks against Europe or the United States. Khorasan is the term used by U.S. intelligence to refer to an al-Qaeda cell said to be embedded within Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian militant group that is fighting both President Bashar al-Assad and U.S.-backed moderate opposition forces of the Free Syrian Army, or FSA.
A statement by U.S. Central Command gave no details on the alleged plots but said five airstrikes destroyed or seriously damaged suspected Khorasan sites including “meeting and staging areas” and facilities to make explosive devices in northwestern Syria. But rebel fighters and opposition activists near the strikes, close to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing in Idlib province, said it appeared that known Jabhat al-Nusra bases were the intended targets and that some of the bombs went far afield. It was not possible to verify either version of the strikes.
The U.S. account noted that the attacks were “not in response” to internal battles among Syrian rebels and did not seek to target “as a whole” an affiliated Syrian group with al-Qaeda ties known as Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front. In the complicated web of relationships among the many groups fighting in Syria, the FSA sometimes collaborates with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in Syria. Last weekend, however, extensive clashes between the two resulted in Jabhat al-Nusra’s seizing significant territory from the FSA in Idlib. The Pentagon did not respond to repeated FSA calls for airstrikes, opposition leaders said.
Khorasan operatives were “taking advantage of the Syrian conflict to advance attacks against Western interests,” and further U.S. airstrikes remain an option, the statement said. Early this week, however, U.S. officials weighed using airstrikes to prevent a Jabhat al-Nusra takeover of Bab al-Hawa, one of two strategic crossings on the Turkish border that are used by the United States and other supporters to funnel military and humanitarian supplies to the FSA.
The Central Command emphasis on the limited scope of the airstrikes underscored the delicate politics and strategy at stake amid Syria’s various — and sometimes overlapping — battles. In an unusual statement announcing the Thursday air attacks, CENTCOM said that “these strikes were not in response to the Nusra Front’s clashes with the Syrian moderate opposition, and they did not target the Nusra Front as a whole.”
A perception that Washington was striking rebel groups — even the al-Qaeda elements — could risk complicating relations between the United States and so-called “moderate” anti-Assad factions, which are seen as possible proxy ground fighters against the radical Islamic State group, an al-Qaeda offshoot also known as ISIS or ISIL. CENTCOM’s commander, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, said, “There were no strikes conducted against the al-Nusra Front.”
It was the second time the Khorasan faction had come under American air attacks. In September, U.S. officials claimed that at least one Khorasan leader was killed in airstrikes at the beginning of the wider campaign by a U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Austin said he did “not want to speculate on the effectiveness” of the strikes. “We’re still in the assessment phase,” he said.
At the time, U.S. officials said Khorasan leaders also were plotting attacks against Western targets. The CENTCOM statement said that “initial indications” were that several Khorasan vehicles and buildings — believed to be “meeting and staging areas,” along with training and bombmaking facilities — were destroyed or severely damaged.
Gen. Lloyd Austin III, who heads Central Command, said that the U.S. military was still assessing the results of the strikes overnight on Khorasan targets in Syria. Intelligence officials declined Thursday to specify whether there had been a new threat from the Khorasan group, which the Obama administration in September said was “actively plotting” an attack against the United States.
He declined to confirm whether a senior member of the group, a French national David Drugeon, known for his bomb-making skills, was killed in the strike. Austin declined to confirm media reports that French national David Drugeon, an alleged Khorasan official and bombmaking expert, had been killed. “He is clearly one of the leadership elements and one of the most dangerous elements in that organization, and so any time that we can take their leadership out, it’s a good thing,” Austin said.
“He is clearly one of the leadership elements and one of the most dangerous elements in that organization, and so any time that we can take their leadership out it’s a good thing,” Austin said at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. One U.S. official, who was not authorized to divulge information about the strikes, said that a vehicle in which Drugeon was believed to be traveling was hit but that it was unclear whether he had been killed.
The latest attacks mark a shift in Syria after weeks of U.S. and allied airstrikes that have mostly targeted Islamic State units and support networks. CENTCOM said that all of the strikes were against Khorasan targets in the vicinity of Sarmada, Syria, close to the border crossing.
Hitting the Khorasan faction appears to reflect relatively pinpoint operations. But the group is believed to be closely affiliated — or embedded — with the much larger Jabhat al-Nusra network. In their version of events, rebels and activists said that, in addition to Jabhat al-Nusra bases, a headquarters of the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, which is loosely allied to both Jabhat al-Nusra and the FSA, was hit and that two of its fighters were killed. The group, unlike Jabhat al-Nusra, is not on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, and allegations that one of its bases was on the target list stirred further suspicions that the U.S. air campaign is intended indirectly to support the Assad regime.
Jabhat al-Nusra has been among the most active groups in the more than three-year uprising to overthrow Assad. It also is a rival to the Islamic State in the competition for territory and influence. Another strike in the border town of Harem killed four children, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a network of civic groups that has been at least partially supported by U.S. funds. The committees posted a video of the bloodied bodies of two of the children said to have been killed, wrapped in a red blanket.
Other rebel groups — including those backed by the West — could interpret any significant U.S.-led attacks against Jabhat al-Nusra as indirect help for Assad’s government. Abdullah Jadaan, a resident of Idlib and journalist for the Syria Live News Network, said a strike that apparently targeted the Islamic sharia court in Sarmada missed and hit a nearby Internet cafe instead.
Thursday’s airstrikes killed an unspecified number of fighters for the ultra-conservative rebel group Ahrar al-Sham and others linked to Jabhat al-Nusra near Syria’s northwestern Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkey, said Rami Abdulrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. As U.S. and Arab warplanes have launched a steady stream of attacks against Islamic State militants, FSA leaders have lamented that President Obama has lost interest in helping them overthrow Assad.
Syrian activists on the ground also reported the strikes on the groups, the Associated Press reported. Despite FSA clashes with Jabhat al-Nusra, Thursday’s attacks angered many Syrians in Idlib and other parts of the country where the Islamic State — which has taken over much of northern and eastern Syria — has no presence and where Assad is seen as the chief enemy.
The Khorasan group is the name U.S. intelligence uses to refer to dozens of al-Qaeda-affiliated foreign fighters who have moved into Syria over the past two years from Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere in the region. As moderate groups seen to be U.S. allies are held responsible, their already weak position has worsened.
Khorasan is a reference from early Islamic texts to a geographic area primarily in western Afghanistan but also including parts of eastern Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The online magazine of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is called “Vanguards of Khorasan.” “The airstrikes are killing civilians and children,” Jadaan said. “The people support Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. . . . These groups are fighting the regime, so people don’t want them to get hit by airstrikes.”
The degree of cooperation and interaction between Khorasan and other hard-line groups is unclear amid the array of factions and breakaway cells in Syria. Charles Lister, who monitors Syria for the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, indicated that the Thursday strikes may have far-reaching effects for the longer-term U.S. strategy of strengthening the moderate fighters. “The U.S. may now have lost Syria,” Lister said in a comment posted on Twitter.
Ahrar al-Sham, which follows an extremely conservative interpretation of Islam, is not believed to have direct ties to al-Qaeda. But it, too, coordinates with Jabhat al-Nusra, which has al-Qaeda links. “This will support the belief that the U.S. does not want an overall solution and that they want to consolidate Assad’s position on the ground,” said Abdurrahman Saleh, a spokesman for the Islamic Front, an umbrella group to which Ahrar al-Sham belongs.
Ahrar al-Sham also is part of an alliance of ultra-conservative rebel groups seeking to carve out territory ruled by Islamic law. But it also is at odds with the Islamic State in the competition for territory and power. Monzer Azbik, an adviser to the head of the U.S.-backed Syrian political opposition, said the United States needs urgently to address opposition concerns about its strategy.
“The coalition attacks appear to have expanded,” Abdulrahman said, adding that one struck the vehicle of a leader of Jabhat al-Nusra. “It is very complicated now,” Akbik said. “If the Syrian people’s grievances with the Assad regime are not taken into consideration, this will jeopardize the whole campaign.”
Last week, Jabhat al-Nusra routed less-extreme rebel groups in Syria’s northern Idlib province, inflicting a setback to the Obama administration’s plan to help train and equip the less-radical opposition to the Syrian regime. In its statement, CENTCOM emphasized that Khorasan was not focused “on overthrowing the Assad regime or helping the Syrian people.” Instead, the statement said, “these al-Qaeda operatives are taking advantage of the Syrian conflict to advance attacks against Western interests.”
There is concern that Jabhat al-Nusra seeks to control the Bab al-Hawa crossing, a major supply line to Syria’s rebels who have battled Assad’s forces for more than three years. Sly reported from Beirut. Hugh Naylor in Beirut contributed to this report.
For weeks, the coalition attacks against the Islamic State appear to have benefited Jabhat al-Nusra, a group respected by many Syrians for keeping up the fight against Assad’s government. Many view the hard-line groups targeted Thursday as important allies in the fight against Assad.
The Free Syrian Army, one of the Western-backed rebel groups, was a major recipient of weapons under a CIA-supported program, although it is unclear whether those arms, which include antitank missiles, were taken by Jabhat al-Nusra.
Ryan reported from Washington. Daniela Deane in London and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.