Al Qaeda Veterans Targeted In Syria Airstrikes
Updated: 3:05pm UK, Tuesday 23 September 2014
By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor
Hitherto obscure, they fell firmly into American gun sight in the first salvoes of the attack by coalition forces inside Syria.
They are the Khorasan Group - al Qaeda veterans allegedly planning attacks against the West.
Led by Musin al Fadhli, a 33-year-old Kuwaiti who was once so close to Osama bin Laden that he knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened, the group subscribes to a ferociously anti-Western agenda.
Until a year or so ago, al Fadhli and his deputy Muhsin al Harbi were based in Iran.
They had been in and out of Iranian custody, occasionally subjected to house arrest - but were vital links to funding and recruitment of al Qaeda's operations, especially in Iraq.
They are, according to intelligence sources, now based in Syria. They have joined up with, or added themselves to, the al Nusra Front.
But while this al Qaeda franchise in Syria has focused on fighting the regime of Bashar al Assad and has been locked in combat with Islamic State, Khorasan have focused on anti-Western operations.
"They have been establishing close links to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - in Yemen - where there are some supremely accomplished bomb makers," said one informed intelligence source.
The Pentagon said the airstrikes against Khorasan were because of active intelligence that their agents were plotting an attack in the West.
The UKand several other states have upped the threat level to "severe" in the last few weeks - which indicated there was intelligence that a terrorist attack was 'likely'.
The Khorasan Group, so-called because they draw their members from early Islamic regions that spread into parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan which was known as Khorasan, is an al Qaeda veteran organisation in comparison with the competing Islamist franchise, Islamic State.
It has been losing ground, fame and recruits to IS and arguably needs to show its strength through a 'spectacular' attack on the West to restore its standing in the face of IS's media campaign and stunning territorial gains.
Late last year, an intelligence agency assessment of what has become the Khorasan Group said that al Fadhli "co-ordinates between the al Qaeda leadership and Jabhat al Nusra, which has been among the more effective fighting forces against Assad".
It said: "Al Fadhli now plays a key role in advancing plans for attacks by al Qaeda from Syria, in accordance with Iran's interests."
That last phrase is significant. How could operations by an al Qaeda-related group, a Sunni movement, serve the interests of Iran, a Shia dominated theocracy?
The answer lies in the old cliche that in the Middle East especially, "my enemy's enemy is my friend".
But it also may indicate that Iranian co-operation in allowing or encouraging al Fadhli to move to Syria was a means to boost the Assad regime's case that it was a bulwark against global Islamic terror.
Damascus has argued since the start of the uprising against Mr Assad's rule that it has been fighting "terrorists".
Whatever the truth of the Iranian connection to the Khorasan Group, Pentagon targeting officers can be expected to pursue the old school al Qaeda operatives - they will want to snuff out attempts to revive the brand by spilling blood in the Homeland.
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