Damascus — When the United States-led forces launched air strikes against the Islamic State extremist group in Syria on Tuesday, it tried to simultaneously wipe out an unrelated cell of Al Qaeda veterans who White House officials said were plotting an “imminent” attack against the US or Europe.

US officials hoped the attacks will paralyse a little-known network called Khorasan and its leader Muhsin Fadhli, a one-time confidant of Osama bin Laden.

Fadli is a leading bomb designer and officials said his specialty was to develop bombs designed to explode aboard aircraft. The bombs would be inserted in clothing, implanted in the human body or packed into packages or computer printers.

…“Syria is a very rich recruiting ground for Khorasan, which targets primarily first-and second-generation European immigrants because it’s much easier to train them, motivate them, give them a network and send them back to the West,” said Mr Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.