Al-Fadhli was killed by a drone strike while traveling in a car on July 8 near Sarmada, Syria, an area west of Aleppo.

Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Al-Fadhli "was a senior al Qaeda facilitator who was among the few trusted al Qaeda leaders that received advanced notification of the September 11, 2001, attacks."

Khorasan is a term for the area in Pakistan and Afghanistan where al Qaeda's main council is believed to be hiding. The militants moved to Syria after the civil war erupted there and were thought to be aiding al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front.

US officials have described Khorasan as a particularly dangerous faction of militants who have been using their base in Syria to plan plots against US and other Western targets.

According to Davis, Al-Fadhli was involved in attacks in October 2002 against US Marines on Faylaka Island in Kuwait and against the French ship MV Limburg.

Al-Fadhli, who was born in Kuwait, was targeted in a US airstrike on September 23, 2014. The SITE monitoring service, a US-based organization that tracks militant groups online, reported later that month that a jihadist had tweeted condolences over his death.

A US official speaking on condition of anonymity said later that al-Fadhli was believed to have been killed. However, the Pentagon and White House said they were not able to confirm the news.

av/cmk (Reuters, AP)