The newfound terrorist group ISIL seems to be all that politicians and news anchors want to talk about lately, and the organization is indeed reasonably terrifying. From its strict and manipulated ideology to the swift rise in power the supposed-Caliph Abu Bakr Baghdadi has achieved. ISIL is certainly something that Americans should be concerned about and aware of when discussing foreign relations, but there is a group in the same area as ISIL that is much less well-known to Americans, but may be a much bigger threat to the American national security. This group is, as of recently, known as Khorasan. It is a satellite group of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, and operates much more secretively (and many would say more dangerously) than its fundamentalist counterpart in the area, ISIL.
Khorasan is a group of terrorists dispatched directly from the head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to recruit militant Muslims fighting with ISIL to the overarching extremist cause of crushing Western society. Though the two groups are indeed ideologically founded on similar grounds, they in some ways seek opposite ends. ISIL aims to create a sovereign state founded on strict Islamic law and principles. ISIL is currently focusing on domestic control, out of necessity, whereas al-Qaeda is forever focused on the defeat of the United States, or “the far enemy.” The majority of leaders of Khorasan are veteran terrorists, mostly from the Gulf region, and most get their background in bomb and weaponry design. Khorasan is a group of militants specifically dedicated to recruiting new members for an eminent attack and to growing their ultimate cause.
This group is a much more prevalent threat to the United States currently for a variety of reasons. Possibly the most important is the very fact that most Americans have never heard of them. They can operate in relative secrecy without many operatives trying to infiltrate their plans. This is not to say that the American government is not aware of the Khorasan in general. It is not a question that U.S. forces have been monitoring the group since its inception around two years ago, and are very unlikely to stop doing so at any point soon.
There is a certain level of safety in relative anonymity to the American populace. Americans do not hear this word as a buzzword to associate with terrorist attacks as they often do with al-Qaeda or, increasingly, ISIL. This means that they will not be driving a public opinion to preventatively attack Khorasan. To make things worse, Khorasan takes many of its leaders from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—a branch of the terrorist group known for being secretive and deadly. The top leaders have been known to create powerful bombs before, always planning to use them on targets within the United States. Khorasan is a group solely dedicated to attacking and destroying the US through whatever means necessary, and its leaders are willing to use the convergence of Islamic militants currently drawn by the IS to the Levant to achieve this goal.
This fact led to the recent decision to attack Khorasan with drone strikes, but with very little mention of the main target of the attacks in President Obama’s speech last week, in which he outlined a plan for preventative attacks within Syria against both IS and Khorasan. Instead he focused on the more-familiar ISIL in order to achieve a “rally round the flag” effect, while gaining a quiet support for attacks on Khorasan. Another reason is that the very name of Khorasan was considered top-secret, classified information until last week. Though the American populace may not know much about the organization, the fact that the majority of citizens were not aware of its existence through the dealings of their own government says a lot about the danger of the organization as a whole.
Khorasan operates under fearsome leaders who show no signs of backing down in their quest against Western, and particularly American, life. They are not as ostentatious as their counterparts leading the ISIL, but this is precisely what makes them terrifying to those who know that they exist. The U.S. government will surely continue their surveillance of the Khorasan group, but it is important for the general American populace to educate themselves as their government has been doing through covert operations. Our country has already begun controversial preventative attacks on the group, but the existence and aggressive recruiting nature of the group only illustrates what an important enemy al-Qaeda still proves to be to the United States. As the government continues to monitor the activities of both ISIL and the Khorasan group within al-Qaeda, all Americans should be aware of the danger from both of these groups in the area in order to ensure our national security in the future.
