What is the Khorasan Group?

The United States is at war with an enemy that few had even heard of before Monday's airstrikes in Syria.

It calls itself the Khorasan Group, and U.S. officials say it was actively plotting to conduct an attack in the United States.

"The Khorasan Group is a group of extremists that is comprised of a number of individuals who we've been tracking for a long time," said Ben Rhodes, President Obama's deputy national security adviser. He said it includes former al Qaeda operatives from across the Middle East. "We believe that that attack plotting was imminent and that they had plans to conduct attacks external to Syria."

While the name is new, the Obama administration said it's made up of al-Qaeda-linked fighters throughout the Middle East, including elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria.

One senior administration official described the group as many of the same people the government that has been tracking and that it is not a band of new terrorists.

A second official described them as experienced and dangerous, adding that the group has actively recruited Westerners.

Both officials were speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the Khorasan Group.

The group is specifically responsible for the additional aviation security measures put in place in Western Europe and the United States in early July, the official said.

As recently as last week, White House and intelligence officials would not confirm that the group existed.

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UPDATE!:

An Unconfirmed report that one of Khorasan’s leaders (perhaps Mushin al-Fadhli) was killed during one of the U.S. Missile strikes:

Read the story HERE.

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