Khorasan Group: another al Qaeda affiliate and rising jihadi threat

While the Khorasan Group may appear to be a lesser danger than ISIS, every al Qaeda offshoot and every jihadi organization is an enemy to be thoroughly exposed and vigorously combated.

ABC: What Is the Khorasan Group, Targeted By US in Syria?

The U.S. military said today that by striking a little known terror cell called the Khorasan Group in Syria it was able to take out dangerous men who were “plotting and planning imminent attacks against Western targets to include the U.S. homeland.”

In the midst of the well-publicized campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the military’s first official announcement that a different, potentially more deadly terror group existed, that it’s members were planning an “imminent” attack on America and that those planning the attack had been killed in the U.S.-led bombing campaign all came as something of a surprise, considering that for the public, the group was virtually unheard of until a few days ago.

So here’s what we know so far about the mysterious Khorasan Group:

What Is the Khorasan Group?

The Khorasan Group is a relatively small al Qaeda unit – made up of just some 50 hardened fighters with mixing jihadist affiliations, according to a half-dozen officials with knowledge of the group. As the U.S. military’s Central Command put it, they are “seasoned al Qaeda veterans.” A senior administration official told reporters the group grew out of al Qaeda’s old core group in Afghanistan.

“It’s the same cast of characters we have had our eye on for some time,” the official said.

Back in June, ABC News reported that an alliance had been building inside Syria between al Qaeda operatives there and those from al Qaeda’s dangerous Yemen-based branch, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), home to expert bomb makers. Sources told ABC News today some of those allied jihadis, then unidentified, made up the Khorasan Group.

The group is not thought to be affiliated with ISIS, which had a public falling out with al Qaeda earlier this year. In fact, the Khorasan Group’s leader may have been tasked with fighting ISIS in Syria as well as the West, according to government documents and reports in the Long War Journal, as part of the larger, violent conflict between ISIS and al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra Front.
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The word Khorasan denotes greater Afghanistan, parts of central Asia and China’s Xinxiang province. The term has religious significance in the context of jihad and several organizations in the region use the name in various ways.

Who’s Their Leader?

The Khorasan Group is believed to led by Muhsin al-Fadhili, a Kuwaiti native. While there’s scant information about the organization he leads, al-Fadhli has a long international rap sheet.

He’s wanted in the U.S. for his work as an “Iran-based senior al Qaeda facilitator and financier,” according to the State Department, and is suspected of being one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted operatives – one of the few aware of the 9/11 attacks before they happened.

Al-Fadhli, 33, was designated a terrorist by the U.S. back in 2005 for providing “financial and material support to the al-Zarqawi Network and al Qaeda,” the State Department said. Ironically over the years the al-Zarqawi Network in Iraq would mutate into what is now ISIS.

“…[P]rior to that [al-Fadhli] was involved in several terrorist attacks that took place October 2002, including the attacks on the French ship MV Limburg and against U.S. Marines on Faylaka Island in Kuwait,” the U.S. Treasury said.

The United Nations added al-Fadhli to its al Qaeda Sanctions Committee list in 2005 as well. The same year, President Bush mentioned al-Fadhli, then just 23, by name in a speech, saying that the U.S., working with others, would “bring him to justice.”

The State Department offers a $7 million reward for information leading to his capture. While the U.S. military said Khorasan Group individuals were killed in the recent strikes, they did not identify any specifically.

So If They’re a Big Deal, Why Haven’t I Heard of Them?

Unlike previous terrorist foes, the U.S. government apparently worked to keep a tight lid on the identity of the Khorasan Group despite, as a senior administration official put it, the government watching the threat from the group “for some time.”

Though ABC News reported an air travel scare this summer that sources said today were linked to the group, the name “Khorasan Group” wasn’t used in the Western media until earlier this month when The Associated Press first identified them. Even after that, when Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., brought up the name in an open Congressional hearing last week, Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson paused awkwardly before telling King that “discussion of specific organizations, I think, should be left to a classified setting.”

More here.

Nuts to THAT, Jeh Johnson! We US citizens, taxpayers, and voters have the right to know exactly who our enemies are and to decide how we want to go about combating them.

CBS: Khorasan leader Muhsin al-Fadhli a skilled al Qaeda fighter, fundraiser

In the days leading up to September 11, 2001, only a handful of al Qaeda operatives outside of Osama bin Laden knew about the impending attacks on the United States.

One of them was named Muhsin al-Fadhli, a 20-year-old from Kuwait who U.S. officials said was a close confidant of the terror network’s notorious leader.

Now 13 years later, al-Fadhli has emerged as the leader of Khorasan, a group of al Qaeda veterans that was nearing “the execution phase of an attack either in Europe” or the U.S., according to the Pentagon.

That is why, on the same night that U.S. and Arab allies carried out more than 200 airstrikes against ISIS, the U.S. alone launched strikes against eight Khorasan targets in northwestern Syria, Pentagon officials said.

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that on Twitter, jihadis are claiming that al-Fadhli died in the bombings but officials could not confirm who may have been killed. The State Department offered a $7 million bounty for information leading to al-Fadhli, who is on the U.S. list of most wanted terrorists.

Much more here.