TerrorismAl-Qaeda-affiliated Khorasan group more dangerous than ISIS: Analysts

Published 23 September 2014

As the the United States begins to counter military advances made by the Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq and Syria, security analysts are concerned about other militant groups which could fill the power vacuum once ISIS shows signs of retreat. ISIS currently lacks the capability directly to attack the United States, and its threat is mostly regional disruption, analysts say, but another militant group in Syria – called the Khorasan group — does have ambitions to attack Western countries at home.

Khorasan strives to attack Western targets // Source: jaride.com

As the Pentagon begins to counter military advances made by the Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq and Syria, security analysts are concerned about other militant groups which could fill the power vacuum once ISIS begins to retreat. ISIS currently lacks the capability directly to attack the United States, and its threat is mostly regional disruption, analysts say, but another militant group in Syria does have ambitions to attack Western countries at home.

The Khorasan group, named after the historic territory covering modern Afghanistan and Iran, is an al-Qaeda off-shoot, but unlike ISIS, its members still maintain a connection with al-Qaeda, and the group is largely focused on terror attacks in the West. James Clapper, director of U.S. national intelligence, said last week that the group could be more dangerous to the United States than IS. Defense One reports that its leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, a 33-year-old Kuwaiti, was recently al-Qaeda’s top man in Iran, financing terror operations in Iraq on behalf of Gulf state donors. The State Department currently has a $7 million bounty for information leading to the location of al-Fadhli.

Last week, at least two dozen U.S. airports were subjected to enhanced security over concerns that members of the Khorasan group were targeting airplanes with bombs by using fighters with Western passports. CBS News reported that the bombs could have been built by Ibrahim al-Asiri, the Yemen-based bomb maker for al-Qaeda, who is responsible for building the underwear bomb worn by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab during the attempted 2009 Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound flight.

The Khorasan group has been working with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in addition to a cell of Afghan and Pakistani fighters in Syria to recruit Jihadists with American and European passports. “That is very worrisome because that brings together two pieces of a potential plot in the West,” former deputy director of the CIA Mike Morrell told CBS. “It brings together Western fighters who have gone to Syria to fight - so capable of carrying out operations in the West - with this bomb technology that Asiri brings to the table. You put those things together, you have a serious threat.”