[Lu Stout:] 90 minutes from now, the U.S. President Barack Obama will deliver a message to the world: stand together to defeat ISIS. Now his address to the UN General Assembly comes as the U.S. and its Arab allies continue to target militants inside Syria. A U.S. military official confirms one new strike near the Syrian Iraqi border and four more in Iraq. On Tuesday, the coalition hit the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa and these other cities, but the U.S. military also acted alone and took aim at the Khorasan group west of Aleppo. Now U.S. officials say it was planning an attack, possibly involving a bomb on an airplane. Nic Robertson has more.
[Nic Robertson, Cnn International Correspondent:] These are the first images of the aftermath of the U.S. and Arab ally's attack on the Khorasan group, an al Qaeda affiliate training jihadists to attack in Europe and the U.S. Until last week, Khorasan was barely known.
[James Clapper, U.s. Director Of National Intelligence:] This Khorasan group, so-called, which I guess is out there is potentially yet another threat to the homeland.
[Robertson:] The Khorasan training camps and bomb making facilities around Aleppo in the north of Syria are believed to host foreign fighters recruited to return home to fight rather than join the jihadists in Syria and Iraq. These strikes, intended to take out Khorasan's leadership. How successful not yet clear.
[Rear Admiral John Kirby, Pentagon Spokesman:] One of the things we were trying to do to disrupt their ability was to go after their leadership.
[Robertson:] One of those figures, 33-year-old Mushin al-Fadhil, a senior al-Qaeda figure, has a $7 million U.S. Department of Treasury bounty on his head. He is believed to be recruiting European and American jihadists to learn bomb making and fighting skills from a few as 100 veteran al Qaeda jihadists.
[Peter Neumann, King's College London:] It's really not about the numbers, it's about the expertise they bring to the table, because these guys draw on the entire international network of al Qaeda. If they can now draw on the foreign fighters that are present in Syria, that would indeed be an explosive combination.
[Robertson:] al-Fadhil is believed by U.S. officials to have organized the finances for an al Qaeda attack on a French oil tanker in October 2002. The MV Lindbergh was attacked in the waters off Yemen, killing one crew member and injuring four. In recent years, al-Fadhil was believed to be hiding in Iran, but now is believed to have emerged and seems set to reassert al Qaeda's relevance and take on ISIS's growing global jihadi dominance.
[Neumann:] Khorasan and al Qaeda, which are not part of ISIS, for them attacks on the west are a priority. They do have the expertise. And though they are much smaller than ISIS, they have to be dealt with because in the short-term at least they are the greatest threat to the U.S. homeland.
[Robertson:] It is this that makes them such a threat to the west. Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
[Lu Stout:] Now the airstrikes in Syria also appear to have taken a toll on another terror group, the al Nusra Front. It is linked to al Qaeda. It's believed to have up to 6,000 members. They operate mainly in Syria where the group is trying to establish an Islamic state. Now it formed during the ongoing Syrian civil war. It's emerged as one of the most effective resistance groups against the government, but the U.S. State Department says the al Nusra Front is trying to hijack the conflict for its own purposes and has killed many Syrian civilians. Now the U.S. has not said that it targeted the al Nusra Front, but the group says one of its key leaders, Abu Yousuf al-Turki was killed in Tuesday's strikes. It posted a photo of him on Twitter. Now CNN cannot independently verify the group's claims. But if true, it could be a blow to the battle against ISIS. Al Nusra had been associated with ISIS until April of 2013, but has been vigorously fighting against it since then and with no boots on the ground, the U.S. has limited options to hit ISIS after airstrikes. Now the wife of a British aid worker held hostage by ISIS says she's received audio of her husband pleading for his life. And once again, Barbara Henning is appealing to the militant group to free him. Now Alan Henning was part of a team of volunteers who went to Syria in December to deliver aid. In the message released by the British government, Barbara Henning questioned why ISIS militants won't let her husband go after an Islamic court declared he wasn't a spy or a threat. Now the Pentagon says freeing the hostages remains an important goal.
[Kirby:] Well, we've remained concerned about the fate of the hostages that we know that they have. It's not something we've ever taken lightly, certainly something that we've never stopped thinking about. As you know, we did attempt one rescue not long ago over the Fourth of July weekend. So it's something we're watching very, very closely, as closely as we can.
[Lu Stout:] To Jordan now where the radical preacher Abu Qatada has been freed from jail after being acquitted of terror charges. Now the cleric was deported from the United Kingdom last year to face trial after years of appeals. In July, he was cleared of conspiring to bomb a U.S. school in Jordan. A short time ago, he was acquitted of plotting to bomb millennium celebrations in Jordan. Now the court ordered Abu Qatada's immediate release if no other charges were laid against him. Abu Qatada was a fiery preacher, cited as an inspiration to the 911 conspirators. He fought extradition from the United Kingdom to Jordan for more than a decade. And CNN's Max Foster is in Abu Dhabi. He joins me now live with the latest. And, Max, tell us more about what led to the decision to clear Abu Qatada of terror charges.
[Max Foster, Cnn International Correspondent:] Well, it's simply that there was insufficient evidence, that's what the court is saying, insufficient evidence that he carried out or was involved in any sorts of plots you've just been referring to them around the millennium. There just wasn't that evidence there. There are various conspiracy theories emerging from here as well, though, some leading analysts in the area suggesting that actually Jordan needs Abu Qatada, because he opposes ISIS. He's an influential figure, but at the same time of course he supports al Qaeda. And he isn't supporting these U.S. strikes on Syria. So quite how useful he is in the battle against ISIS, which certainly Jordan is supporting, isn't clear. But analysts are suggesting that he is a powerful figure and someone that is useful to Jordan in that context. But as far as the court is concerned, it's simply because there wasn't enough evidence against him.
[Lu Stout:] Abu Qatada, he was deported from the UK in 2013 after a long legal effort to extradite him. Now that he's been released, where will he go? And can he return to the UK?
[Foster:] Well, there certainly, he was a very controversial figure in the UK. And it became a political issue. And the home secretary got involved and she was really pushing for him to be deported. There was this whole legal argument around that, because there was concern that evidence used in torture would be used in the Jordanian which stopped under human rights law, Qatada being deported, finally they resolved that by coming up with a treaty between the UK and Jordan saying any evidence used against people deported from the UK cannot be linked to any sort of torture. So that was resolved, but it was a very big political issue. And the home secretary today issued this statement, "Abu Qatada remains a subject to a deportation order and the United Nations travel ban. He is not coming back to the UK." So we can be sure that he won't be going back to the UK on any level on legal terms, political terms, it would not be acceptable to have him back there.
[Lu Stout:] All right, CNN's Max Foster joining us live from Abu Dhabi with the latest. Thank you, Max. You're watching News Stream. Still to come, a gruesome job handling the burial of Ebola victims is a dangerous but necessary task in Liberia.