Why did the US bomb "Khorasan"?

This week the US, France and a few Arab countries started bombing ISIS targets in Syria, in addition to the attacks on ISIS in Iraq.

In response, ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad AL-Adnani released a statement Monday urging Islamist militants to kill American and French citizens around the world.

But is ISIS really the biggest Islamic-jihad danger to the US? After all, the Obama administration has repeatedly said that ISIS does not present an “immediate threat” to America. And they could be right.

Intelligence officials say the U.S. needs to be on the alert for terror threats from a militant group in Syria -- and it's not ISIS.

Last weekend several US media outlets reported on “Khorasan” an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization based in Syria, that most analysts say is far more dangerous to the US and Western countries than ISIS.

In what the Wall Street Journal described as the first time an American official publicly acknowledged the group, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, said that “in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger” as the Islamic State.

While the ever growing ISIS continues to seize land to expand its self-proclaimed caliphate, Khorasan has its sights set on attacking the U.S., decisively and repeatedly.

ISIS wants its caliphate and territorial control. Khorasan wants a repeat of 9/11.

Khorasan’s members arrive in large numbers from Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan to exploit the flood of Western jihadists, young men and women, who having been recruited on social media have come to join the fight. They are radicalized  — and possess very valuable passports.

According to the AP, the group was sent to Syria by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who saw a prime opportunity to recruit Western passport holders. The attraction is that Westerners can board planes back to their homelands more easily.

Led by Muhsin AL-Fadhli, 31, who reportedly had a very close relationship with Osama bin Laden, Khorasan is possibly the most secretive Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. The group has close ties to Al Qaeda’s notorious Yemeni bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, who devised the underwear bomb used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2009, and the “shoe bomb” used by convicted terrorist Richard Reid in 2001.

The group's expertise in making undetectable bombs, coupled with the presence of jihadist fighters with Western passports, makes it a significant threat to the US and Western countries.

The group’s leader, Al-Fadhli, is hiding in Syria while procuring powerful bombs from Yemen. The goal in Syria is to find people to detonate the bombs.

Al-Fadhli then, according to the Arab Times, “trains them on how to execute terror operations in the Western countries, focusing mostly on means of public transportation such as trains and airlines".

According to former deputy director of the CIA Mike Morrell, this is what makes the group dangerous. "That is very worrisome because that brings together two pieces of a potential plot in the West," Morell told CBS This Morning. "It brings together Western fighters who have gone to Syria to fight - and are 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."

Just last week, CBS reported that at least two dozen US airports were subjected to enhanced security screenings over fears that Khorasan was targeting the airline industry sooner than predicted.

Al Qaeda affiliate Khorasan and Salafi-Islamist ISIS are dedicated to forcing, by means of terror, the practice of their version of Islam on all who do not believe as they do.

Both are equally dangerous to the Western world. Both must be, in accordance with the current official US policy on ISIS: “degraded and destroyed”.

Which is why the US announced today (Wednesday) that the latest attacks in Syria included strikes on the headquarters of Khorasan, which caused extensive damage and many casualties, possibly including Muhsin Al-Fadhli, the groups charismatic leader.

As of this writing, Wednesday, 9/24 at 2:30PM CST, there is no confirmation of Al-Fadhli's status, or his location.