The Khorasan group, sometimes known simply as Khorasan, is an alleged group of senior
al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
members operating in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. The group is reported to consist of a small number of fighters who are all on terrorist watchlists, and coordinates with
al-Nusra Front
Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra ( ar, جبهة النصرة لأهل الشام, Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahl ish-Sham lit. ''Front of the Supporters of the People of Syria/the Levant''), known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham ( ar, جبهة فتح ال ...
, al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria. At an intelligence gathering in Washington, D.C. on 18 September 2014,
Director of National Intelligence
The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior, cabinet-level United States government official, required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Co ...
James Clapper stated that "in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as
ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
."
The term first appeared in news media in September 2014, although the United States had reportedly been keeping track of the group for two years. By early November 2014, the term had disappeared from political rhetoric. Commentators have stated that the threat the Khorasan Group represented was exaggerated to generate public support for American intervention in Syria, and some have questioned whether the group even exists as a distinct entity.
On 28 May 2015, al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani explicitly denied the existence of the supposed Khorasan group. The al-Nusra Front had received specific orders since at least early 2015 from al-Qaeda leader
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (June 19, 1951 – July 31, 2022) was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death.
Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with a ...
to cease any activities related to attacking Western targets.
In July 2015, both Muhsin al-Fadhli, said to be the operational leader of the group, and chief bombmaker David Drugeon, were killed by 2 US airstrikes. After their deaths, FBI Director James Comey stated that the Khorasan group had become diminished, and that ISIL was now a bigger threat to the US.
On 15 October 2015, a Coalition airstrike in northwest Syria killed Abdul Mohsen Adballah Ibrahim al Charekh (a.k.a. Sanafi al-Nasr), who was then the highest ranking leader of the Khorasan group. He was the deputy leader of Khorasan before Muhsin al-Fadhli's death.
Beginning in January 2017, it was reported that the US no longer referred to Khorasan fighters specifically, and that US officials no longer attempted to distinguish between Khorasan and al-Nusra Front militants, instead, labeling them all collectively as "al-Qaeda". Around this time, the US significantly increased the number of its airstrikes against al-Nusra Front and other al-Qaeda-affiliated targets.Pentagon: Airstrikes kill 20 or more al Qaeda fighters in northern Syria /ref>
Name
Khorasan
Khorasan may refer to:
* Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
* Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
is a historical term for a region corresponding to parts of Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. The name of the group was coined by intelligence agencies as a reference to the high-ranking Khorasan Shura, a leadership council within al-Qaeda, which many members of the group belong to.
United States Central Command
The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilities of the Rapid Deployment Joint Ta ...
, the U.S. Department of Defense military command responsible for operations in Syria and Iraq, described the Khorasan Group name in a 6 November 2014 press release as: "a term used to refer to a network of Nusrah Front and al-Qa'ida core extremists who share a history of training operatives, facilitating fighters and money, and planning attacks against U.S. and Western targets."
Membership
The group is described as "a very small group - dozens of fighters only", composed of experienced
jihadi
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
s from various countries. The group is believed to be made up of "al-Qaeda core" members, meaning the high-ranking members of al-Qaeda who moved to Pakistan following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. An American intelligence source indicated the group numbers about 50 members. Members of the group are said to have worked with bomb-makers from
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...
, including an al-Qaeda affiliated bomb-maker named Ibrahim al-Asiri to target civilian aircraft heading to the United States and other Western targets. Another member of the group was Frenchman David Drugeon; who was thought to have worked as a bombmaker for the group.
According to US officials, the organization is led by Mohammed Islambouli, whose brother Khalid Islambouli assassinated Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
in 1981. A senior leader within the group was Muhsin al-Fadhli, a prominent al-Qaeda member who went to
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
after the
US invasion of Afghanistan
In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government. The invasion's aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the September 11 attacks, and to deny it a safe base of operation ...
, until he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria in July 2015. He was also in charge of Khorasan's external operations. Another Khorasan Group member,
Abu Yusuf Al-Turki
Ümit Yaşar Toprak also known by his nom de guerre Abu Yusuf Al-Turki (the "Turk") was a sniper in the al-Nusra Front who trained fighters on how to become snipers. He was also a member of the Wolf Unit, which was described as a unit of al-Nusra ...
, was reported to have been killed on 23 September 2014 by US airstrikes in Syria.
There are indications that some members of the Khorasan Group (including Abu Yusuf Al-Turki) were part of an elite sniper subunit of the al-Nusra Front that was known as the "Wolf Group".
Activities
The group was initially reported to pose an "imminent" threat to the United States, with reports of potential plots involving "a bomb made of a nonmetallic device like a toothpaste container or clothes dipped in explosive material".
Later statements by officials indicated that "there were no known targets or attacks expected in the next few weeks" at the time the US began bombing in Syria. On 5 October 2014, FBI director
James Comey
James Brien Comey Jr. (; born December 14, 1960) is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his dismissal in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adul ...
stated, "I can't sit here and tell you whether their plan is tomorrow or three weeks or three months from now", but that "we have to act as if it's coming tomorrow."
Criticism of term
A 23 September 2014 article by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace stated that "the sudden flurry of revelations about the 'Khorasan Group' in the past two weeks smacks of strategic leaks and political spin". The article also stated that "Whatever one decides to call it, this is not likely to be an independent organization, but rather a network-within-the-network, assigned to deal with specific tasks."
In an article in ''
The Intercept
''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing news website founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and funded by billionaire eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its current editor is Betsy Reed. The publication initially reporte ...
'', journalists
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...
and Murtaza Hussain stated that "There are serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful or identifiable manner", describing reports of the group as "propagandistic and legal rationale" for military intervention. Similarly, according to an analysis in ''Conflict News'', "the US government made the decision to bomb this Wolf Group of Jabhat Al-Nusra, and then later came up with a way to sell to the public. This strategy ended up in the creation of 'Khorasan' a group which never existed in any form beyond the statements of US officials."
On 27 May 2015, in an exclusive interview with
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
, the leader of the al-Nusra Front, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, stated that the al-Nusra Front did not have intentions to "target the West", referring to North America and Europe, while warning against Western Coalition airstrikes. He also alleged that "there is nothing called heKhorasan group. The Americans came up with it to deceive the public".
American-led intervention
On 23 September 2014,
United States Central Command
The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilities of the Rapid Deployment Joint Ta ...
stated that they had conducted eight air strikes against the group's training camps,
command and control
Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or en ...
facilities, and other sites in the area west of Aleppo, Syria. The attacks were ineffective and killed only one or two militants, largely because the members of the group had been warned in advance.
On 6 November 2014, US-led coalition forces bombed targets in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces. Despite US military officials stating that only the Khorasan Group was targeted, local activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that both
Ahrar ash-Sham
Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya ( ar-at, حركة أحرار الشام الإسلامية, Ḥarakat Aḥrāru š-Šām al-Islāmiyah, lit=Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant), commonly referred to as Ahrar al-Sham, is a coalition ...
and Jabhat al-Nusra were also hit. It was later announced that the Khorasan's chief bombmaker David Drugeon was believed to have been killed in the attack, but later reports indicated he was only wounded.
The US carried out a third raid on the group on 13 November 2014.
On 18 November, the Syrian Army ambushed a group of Khorasan militants in the countryside of Latakia in a separate operation. Eleven members of the group were killed and another 13 were wounded or captured. The Kazakh and Chechen field commanders of the unit, along with Burmese and Saudi jihadists, were among the dead. The attack also left seven al-Nusra Front fighters dead.
On 19 November, the US launched another airstrike on Khorasan near Harim, Syria, which struck and destroyed a storage facility associated with the group.
On 1 December 2014, the US carried out another airstrike on Khorasan near Aleppo. On 10 December, the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
stated that both Muhsin al-Fadhli and David Drugeon, who were both thought dead after US airstrikes, were still alive. Drugeon was said to be badly wounded, and was recuperating in a Khorasan-operated hospital.
On 24 March 2015, it was reported that 17 Khorasan fighters had been killed by US airstrikes targeting the group, since the beginning of the campaign on 22 September 2014.
On 20 May 2015, the US conducted 2 airstrikes on Khorasan targets in the Idlib Province, killing Algerian jihadist Said Arif, who was a US-designated terrorist that had become the military chief of
Jund al-Aqsa
Jund al-Aqsa ( ar, جند الأقصى ''Jund al-‘Aqṣā'', "Garrison of al-Aqsa"), later known as Liwa al-Aqsa after 7 February 2017, was a Salafist jihadist organization that was active during the Syrian Civil War. Formerly known as Sara ...
.
On 1 July 2015, David Drugeon was killed by a US airstrike to the west of Aleppo, though his death was not reported until 11 September 2015.
In late July 2015, the Pentagon claimed that it had killed Muhsin al-Fadhli on 8 July 2015, in an airstrike on a vehicle near
al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
or the Khorasan group.
On 18 October 2015, it was reported that Sanafi al-Nasr, the new leader of the Khorasan group, was killed in a US airstrike on 15 October 2015. He was formerly al-Qaeda's chief financial officer, and he was also said to have been the 5th Khorasan senior leader killed by US airstrikes in the last 4 months.
On 3 April 2016, Abu Firas al Suri, al-Nusra's spokesman, and seen as a leading figure within the Khorasan group, was killed in a US airstrike. The airstrike also killed al-Suri's son and 20 other al-Nusra and
Jund al-Aqsa
Jund al-Aqsa ( ar, جند الأقصى ''Jund al-‘Aqṣā'', "Garrison of al-Aqsa"), later known as Liwa al-Aqsa after 7 February 2017, was a Salafist jihadist organization that was active during the Syrian Civil War. Formerly known as Sara ...
militants.Syria's Qaeda spokesman, 20 jihadists dead in strikes: monitor /ref> Later in the same week, a second airstrike killed several Khorasan militants, including Rifai Ahmed Taha Musa, who attempted to unite Ahrar ash-Sham with al-Nusra Front in January 2016.
On 3 October, a US airstrike killed senior al-Qaeda member Abu Faraj al-Masri, who was a senior commander in Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (al-Nusra's rebranded name at the time), in the Idlib Province. Al-Masri had been a senior figure in al-Nusra's Core al-Qaeda group, or Khorasan group. /ref> On 17 October, another US airstrike near Idlib city killed Haydar Kirkan, who was a senior al-Nusra member in charge of facilitating al-Qaeda's external network and planning external attacks from Syria.Warning Update: al Qaeda's Global Attack Campaign /ref>
On 12 January 2017, a US airstrike near Saraqib killed al-Nusra leaders Abd al-Jalil al-Muslimi, Abu Amas al-Masri, and Abu Ikrimah al-Tunsi, along with 10 or 15 other al-Nusra fighters. This came after an marked increase in US airstrikes on al-Nusra Front beginning in January 2017, at which time the US reportedly dropped the "Khorasan group" label and began referring to all al-Qaeda linked targeted as simply "al-Qaeda".US kills al Qaeda facilitator and external ops planner in Syrian airstrikes /ref>
On 19 January, a US airstrike struck the al-Qaeda Shaykh Sulayman training camp near the town of
Darat Izza
Darat Izza ( ar, دارة عزة, also spelled Darat Aza or Darit Izza) is a town in northern Syria, administratively part of the Aleppo Governorate, located northwest of Aleppo. Nearby localities include Deir Samaan to the north, Anadan to t ...
, killing 110 Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (al-Nusra) fighters. Some Nour al-Din al-Zenki fighters were also killed in the attack.U.S. air strike in Syria kills more than 100 al Qaeda members: Pentagon /ref>US air strikes kill more than 100 ‘al-Qaeda militants’ at training camp in Syria /ref> The training camp had been run by both Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and al-Zenki, and had been operational since 2013. By then, US airstrikes had killed more than 150 al-Qaeda militants in Syria, in 2017. Following this airstrike, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham openly engaged in armed clashes with Ahrar al-Sham and other Free Syrian Army groups.
On 26 February, a US airstrike in Al-Mastoumeh, Idlib Province, killed Abu Khayr al-Masri, who was the deputy leader of al-Qaeda. He had been dispatched to Syria by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and was nested in the Khorasan group.BREAKING: Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader killed in Idlib drone strike /ref>War On Terror: Who Is Abu Khayr al-Masri? Al Qaeda Second In Command Killed In Drone Strike In Syria /ref>Syria: Al Qaeda Deputy Killed In Apparent Drone Strike /ref> The US airstrike also killed another
Tahrir al-Sham
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) (, transliteration: ', "Organization for the Liberation of the Levant" or "Levant Liberation Committee"), commonly referred to as Tahrir al-Sham, is a Sunni Islamist political and armed organisation involved in the ...
militant, who was traveling in the same car.Deputy al Qaeda leader killed In Syria /ref>