The attack on al Qaeda in Syria

Bill Gertz:
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The U.S. Central Command said eight bombing attacks were carried out against the group west of the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo. They included attacks on training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building and command and control facilities.
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The attack on the Khorasan group, made up of al Qaeda terrorists who migrated to Syria from Pakistan and Afghanistan and the local al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, highlights the role played by Syria as a new center for international terrorism.

“We have been monitoring over the course of many months the development of plotting against the United States and Western targets emanating from Syria,” White House official Ben Rhodes said.

“So for some time now we’ve been tracking plots to conduct attacks in the United States or Europe,” he said. “We believe that that attack plotting was imminent in that they had plans to conduct attacks external to Syria.”
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The attacks appear to have had several targets which is a good start.   It looks like much of "core" al Qaeda has set up operation in Syria.  The administration has been downplaying the threat for months and is finally having to deal with it.

CNN reports the nature of the attack:

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The plots against the United States were discovered by the intelligence community in the past week, an intelligence source with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The source did not say what the target may have been, but said the plot potentially involved a bomb made of a nonmetallic device like a toothpaste container or clothes dipped in explosive material.

A plot involving concealed bombs on airplanes "was just one option they were looking at," a U.S. official said.
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The group appears to be more like a terrorist research and development effort.