海角大神

Muhsin al-Fadhli, leader of the Al Qaeda affiliate known as the 鈥淜horasan group,鈥� is dead, US officials confirmed Tuesday.

聽says that the Kuwait-born聽Mr. Fadhli聽was killed on July 8 鈥渋n a strike鈥� while traveling in a vehicle near Sarmada a city in Syria near Turkey's border.聽

Many Americans have never even heard of the Khorasan group. Who are they?聽

, the term 鈥淜horasan鈥� did not appear in mainstream media until September 2014. Many people thought the group was a new, highly dangerous terrorist organization. in September paints a different story: 鈥渁l Qaida鈥檚 Syrian cell alarms US.鈥� The report describes the Khorasan group as 鈥渁 cadre of veteran al-Qaida fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan who traveled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaida affiliate there.鈥�

, the Khorasan group鈥檚 mission is to find new ways to attack the United States and Europe 鈥� making it an immediate threat to American national security. For this reason, the information was highly classified until it was released in 2014.

The name 鈥淜horasan鈥� refers to the far east of the Muslim world, and, as , 鈥淸i]t is used today by al-Qaeda (and others who are fond of archaic Islamic terminology) to describe the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran region.鈥�

"[T]his is not likely to be an independent organization," they continue, "but rather a network-within-the-network, assigned to deal with specific tasks."聽

Very little is publicly known about the group, but it is believed to be made up of about two dozen seasoned Qaeda operatives, . American officials say they were sent to Syria by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda鈥檚 leader in Pakistan.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who is now at the Brookings Institution, that Fadhli's death 鈥溾�� is a significant blow to Al Qaeda鈥檚 top terror team.鈥�

The terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was also started by an Al Qaeda operative, but the two militant groups soon parted ways.聽, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi launched Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004 in an attempt to ignite a sectarian war against Iraq鈥檚 Shiite majority. The group began referring to itself as "The Islamic State" in 2014.聽

ISIS鈥檚 main goal is to create an Islamist country across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria. But the organization is not limited in its vision for the future. One former ISIS fighter in Turkey聽 that, 鈥渕ain and principal goal of the Islamic State that they tell their new members is to establish an Islamic state that will encompass the Arab world."聽

"After that," the man added, "we go to other countries.鈥�

that the White House does not believe ISIS poses an imminent threat to the continental US, but that the Khorasan group does.