The world's most wanted man who was masterminding plots to attack U.S. targets with "toothpaste bombs" is said to have been killed in the U.S. airstrikes against the Khorasan terror group in Syria.
The organization's leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, a former lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, died in the first wave of air raids in the Aleppo province by American fighters, according to
MailOnline citing online reports from Islamic jihadists.
But the death claim could not be confirmed independently, which sparked suggestions that it may simply be a scheme to give the 1,000 member al-Qaida offshoot time to regroup, the website said.
However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group in the region, has claimed that 50 al-Qaida militants died in the attacks, most of whom were linked to Khorasan.
U.S. officials said Khorasan terrorists were targeted in the bombing campaign after the organization was deemed an "imminent threat" to Americans and other Westerners after the intelligence community had discovered it was plotting a series of attacks.
Although the targets were not named, sources told
CNN that airplanes "was just one option they were looking at."
Al-Fadhli was said to be the mastermind behind the plot to use "toothpaste tube bombs" made of a non-metallic device, or clothes dipped in explosives, to target airlines, according to the MailOnline.
The Kuwaiti-born Al-Fadhli, 33, has been a senior member of al-Qaida since his teens, and even had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks in 2011 when he was just 20.
During his stunning rise through the terror ranks, he was the top deputy and bodyguard to al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in 2006. And at just 24, he was notorious enough to warrant a mention in a 2005 speech by former President George H.W. Bush.
Al-Fadhli became well-known among Sunni militants for being able to raise money from wealthy jihadists to fund terror campaigns, including setting up an al-Qaida branch in Iran, MailOnline reports citing the U.S. Treasury Department. He later branched out to funding terror activities in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that the airstrikes killed the leader of another terror group, the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front. Citing a statement from the group on Twitter, CNN identified the leader as Abu Yousef al-Turki, also known as "The Turk."
The al-Nusra statement posted on Twitter was accompanied by a proof-of-death photograph of the jihadist, said CNN, which could not independently verify al-Nusra's claims.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the terror group was among the terrorists attacked during the airstrikes, even though the U.S. did not identify al-Nusra as a group targeted in the air raids.