Top al Qaeda leader Sanafi al-Nasr killed in U.S. airstrike, Pentagon says

(CNN)The leader of an al Qaeda-linked group allegedly bent on attacking the West has been killed in an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria, U.S. officials said Sunday.

Sanafi al-Nasr, a Saudi citizen whose real name is Abdul Mohsen Adballah Ibrahim al Charekh, was the highest-ranking member of the Khorasan Group -- a collection of veteran al Qaeda jihadis which had moved into Syria, the Pentagon said in a statement.

He was killed in an airstrike in northwest Syria on Thursday, the statement said.

Nasr, who was once al Qaeda's chief financial officer and had been designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Treasury, is the fifth senior Khorasan Group leader killed in the last four months, said the statement.