According to a research associate reporting for Newsweek, Arabic media "has basically copied the New York Times story… another key indicator of how little is known about the group beyond what U.S. officials have said."Taylor Wofford, “What is the Khorasan Group and Why Is It Being Targeted by the U.S.?” Newsweek, September 23, 2014, http://www.newsweek.com/what-khorasan-group-and-why-it-being-targeted-us-272789.

The most significant article seems to have come from a Dubai-based reporter by the name of Jenan Moussa. In the piece for Al Aan, Moussa claimed to have uncovered internal documents of the Khorasan group, asserting that the group the U.S. refers to as Khorasan is in fact not a separate cell of al-Qaeda members, but rather a subset of al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra affiliate in Syria. According to Moussa, the group actually refers to itself as “The Wolf Unit of Jabhat al-Nusra” and is composed of 14 members: “four Turks, two Egyptians, two Yemenis, two Tunisians, one Palestinian, one Serbian, and one from the Caucasus region,” as well as one listed member thought to be unaffiliated with the Syrian al-Nusra Front.Max Fischer, “Is Khorasan’s Real Name ‘The Wolf Unit of Jabhat al-Nusra’?” Vox, September 30, 2014, http://www.vox.com/2014/9/30/6875671/is-khorasans-real-name-the-wolf-unit-of-jabhat-al-nusra.

U.S. officials have confirmed that Khorasan works intimately with the al-Nusra Front,Ken Dilanian, “Strikes Didn’t End Threat From Syrian Terror Cell,” October 9, 2014, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/12e16712aa854b1ba75b21b891444364/airstrikes-not-end-threat-syrian-terror-cell. and are made up of a number of al-Nusra operatives.“‘One and the Same’? Officials Give Conflicting Statements on Al Qaeda Ties to ‘Khorasan’,” Fox News, September 30, 2014, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/30/one-and-same-officials-give-conflicting-statements-on-al-qaeda-ties-to-khorasan/.