September 23, 2014 | Quote
How “Khorasan” Went From Nowhere To The Biggest Threat To The U.S.
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“The group has been referred to elliptically in open-source reporting for several months now,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counter-terrorism analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gartenstein-Ross said that the composition and size of the group is still unclear, though: “At the very least, number one, it’s embedded with Jabhat al-Nusra but it’s a separate organization from Nusra.” The name, he said, “has particular eschatological meanings related to jihadist views of the end times.”
Gartenstein-Ross said there could be more information coming out about other aspects of Khorasan: “It’s possible that information that’s coming out about the Khorasan shura [or council of leaders] is about its operational wing rather than information abut the entirety of the group. It certainly seems it’s more than just an external operations capability.”
The group, he said, appears to be connected to Ibrahim al-Asiri, the bomb maker for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was connected to the underwear bomber.
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