Reason it failed: Obama’s decision to dismantle the network of bases and spies we had established during the Iraq war left us with little to no intelligence.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The barrage of U.S. cruise missiles aimed at a cell of al-Qaida militants in Syria last month failed to stop ongoing terror plots to blow up airplanes over Europe and the United States, American intelligence officials say.

The strikes on a facility near Aleppo killed only one or two key members of what is referred to as the Khorasan Group, officials said, because many of the militants had scattered amid news reports highlighting their activities.

Among those who survived is a French-born jihadist who fought in Afghanistan with a military prowess that is of great concern to U.S. intelligence officials. The group is believed to be continuing its plans to attack the West, officials say

“The strikes were certainly effective in setting back the Khorasan Group, but no one thinks they were a permanent solution or a death blow to the threats that come from this cell,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

On Sept. 22, the U.S. fired 46 cruise missiles at eight locations to target the group. At the same time, American airstrikes struck targets associated with the Islamic State group in Syria.

One of the U.S. missiles went awry and killed a dozen civilians in the village of Kfar Derian, according to Mohammed Abu Omar, an activist in the northern province of Idlib. The U.S. military says it has not confirmed any civilian casualties.

The limited effectiveness of the attack on the Khorasan Group is partly the result of a hazy intelligence picture that also has bedeviled the air campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. lacks the networks of bases, spies and ground-based technology it had in place during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials say, or even the network of human sources it developed in Pakistan and Yemen.