Wave of Western Media Outlets Say Khorasan Group is the Same as Core Al-Qaeda

One strain of Western media emphasizes that the Khorasan group does not exist as a separate entity from core al-Qaeda itself. While The Washington Post, for example, underscores the links between Khorasan and al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria in order to paint the Khorasan group as an old threat, this second designation of Khorasan emphasizes the large-scale threat posed by al-Qaeda, and sees the group’s connections with al-Nusra Front as corroborative of that threat. According to these outlets, the group’s ties core al-Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate highlight the failure of the current administration to degrade the large-scale al-Qaeda threat.

In an article from September 26, the Long War Journal noted that in the aftermath of the September 22 airstrikes “[t]he press wondered aloud, ‘What is the Khorasan group?’” The Journal answered that “[i]t is, to put it simply, al Qaeda.”Thomas Joscelyn, “Misunderstanding Al Qaeda,” Long War Journal, September 26, 2014, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/09/misunderstanding_al.php. The Journal added that “[t]he idea that terrorists cannot be core al Qaeda solely because they are located outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan is obtuse.” Muhsin al-Fadhli and Sanafi al Nasr are both “by any reasonable definition, core al Qaeda members… Fadhli and Nasr once oversaw al Qaeda's Iran-based network, which the Obama administration has described as a ‘core facilitation pipeline’ for al Qaeda.” The article noted that Fadhli had planned attacks as early as 2002 and had been one of the select few within al-Qaeda to have been given advance notice of the 9/11 attacks.Thomas Joscelyn, “Misunderstanding Al Qaeda,” Long War Journal, September 26, 2014, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/09/misunderstanding_al.php.

The following day, National Review published an article headlined, “The Khorasan Group Does Not Exist.”Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Khorasan Group Does Not Exist,” National Review, September 27, 2014, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388990/khorosan-group-does-not-exist-andrew-c-mccarthy. In the article, author Andrew McCarthy took the administration to task for claiming that core al-Qaeda had been decimated and artificially corroborating this claim by repackaging the threat from Syria as a separate entity. According to McCarthy, “The ‘Khorosan Group’ is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, ‘Jabhat al-Nusra.’”Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Khorasan Group Does Not Exist,” National Review, September 27, 2014, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388990/khorosan-group-does-not-exist-andrew-c-mccarthy.

An NPR piece from October 3rd claims that U.S. officials have themselves admitted that the Khorasan group is part of core al-Qaeda. According to NPR, “Officials say [the Khorasan group] is both a consultative body — something known in Arabic as a shura — as well as a forward operating base for Core al-Qaida.”Dina Temple-Raston, “Al-Qaida Reasserts Itself With Khorasan Group,” NPR, October 3, 2014, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/03/353498827/al-qaida-reasserts-itself-with-khorasan-group. The piece ended on an analysis from a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization, saying that the group “is breathing fresh life into Core al-Qaida.”Dina Temple-Raston, “Al-Qaida Reasserts Itself With Khorasan Group,” NPR, October 3, 2014, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/03/353498827/al-qaida-reasserts-itself-with-khorasan-group.

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Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.

In Their Own Words:

We reiterate once again that the brigades will directly target US bases across the region in case the US enemy commits a folly and decides to strike our resistance fighters and their camps [in Iraq].

Abu Ali al-Askari, Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) Security Official Mar. 2023
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