Officials: US Attacks on ‘Khorasan’ Failed

Leaders of Group Still Live, Actively Plotting

US officials say that the September attack on “Khorasan,” a US-invented term for a faction within Jabhat al-Nusra, failed even worse than previously reported, and the leaders previously reported killed actually survived.

Though officials claimed to be tracking Khorasan for a long time, experts believe the term was primarily invented to sell the attacks as something other than on Nusra, which in addition to being al-Qaeda is also a close ally of the “moderate” rebels the US always hypes in Syria.

The group’s leaders, such as they are, were al-Qaeda members previously claimed as leaders of other dubious plots, such as the “al-Qaeda in Iran” wing that was so popularly hyped during the Iraq War.

Now, officials say the leaders were in league with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni faction, and were learning bomb-making from the people who brought you the failed underwear bomber. That is the primary basis on which they’re being dubbed an “imminent threat,” and one that is actively plotting against the US. And if they weren’t plotting before, they certainly are after the failed attacks on them.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.