US strike in Syria 'kills senior al-Qaeda militant' Published duration 18 October 2015

image copyright AFP image caption US officials say the Khorasan Group has embedded itself with units of the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria

The US says it has a killed a senior member of a group of al-Qaeda veterans called the Khorasan Group in an air strike in north-western Syria.

A Pentagon statement said the strike killed a Saudi national called Sanafi al-Nasr.

The statement said he had funnelled money and recruits to Al-Qaeda and had helped its "operations in the West".

Some reports of deaths of leaders in the Khorasan Group have turned out to be false.

In July the US said it had killed the leader of the group, a Kuwaiti called Muhsin al-Fadhli. He had previously been reported killed in 2014.

The Pentagon said Sanafi al-Nasr had "moved funds from donors in the Gulf region into Iraq and then to al-Qaeda leaders".

"He organized and maintained routes for new recruits to travel from Pakistan to Syria through Turkey," it went on.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, reported that he had been killed on Friday in Aleppo province.

The Khorasan Group - a name apparently coined by the US - is believed to be made up of veteran militants from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which jihadists refer to as Khorasan, as well as North Africa and Chechnya.

They are thought to have embedded themselves within al-Qaeda's local affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, and obtained land and buildings in its strongholds.