| A good backgrounder on the Khorasan Group, the target of American bombs in Syria. Herewith, a taste: |
Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
's deputy as P5+1 nuclear talks resume.
On the evening of Sept. 17, rumors began swirling across the Internet that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in an
Then came the tweets from jihadist accounts that Zawahiri was alive and kicking, "according to Khorasan sources."
"News coming from Khurasan Mujahideen saying Sheikh Zawahiri is safe & sound! Alhamdulillah," tweeted an English-language jihadist account.
Khorasan, on the map circulated by ISIS, includes Iran, reaching deep into central Asia through Afghanistan and Turkmenistan and swallowing the Indian subcontinent. The sudden focus on this name comes in the same month that Zawahiri announced a long-planned expansion into India, Burma, Bangladesh and beyond -- the Al-Qaeda Jihad Organization in South Asia.
It's also the name for a chapter of al-Qaeda in Syria, led by the former commander of al-Qaeda in Iran.