Politic?

Aiding Damascus / Achieving Martyrdom

"I can say that the enhanced security measures that we took [banning uncharged electronic devices on some flights were] based on concerns we had about what the Khorasan group was planning to do."
U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

"Fadhli is certainly one of the most capable of the al Qaeda core members. His loss would be significant, but as we've seen before, any decapitation is only a short-term gain. The hydra will grow another head."
U.S. Representative Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, House Intelligence Committee

"Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people."
"Because of the almost unprecedented effort of this coalition [Khorasan group], I think we now have an opportunity to send a very clear message that the world is united."
U.S. President Barack Obama

"This is the right way to do it, if you want to defeat the Islamic State, because you cannot cut off the tail and leave the head. And everyone is participating, so no one can accuse the United States alone."
Ebtesam al-Ketbi, chairwoman, Emirates Policy Center

"[The United States and its allies] want to divide our lands, destroy our nations, occupy our homelands and monopolize our choices, without shedding one drop of their blue blood."
Massoud al-Hennawi, Al Ahram, Egypt

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement on the recent airstrikes against ISIS on the South

Lawn of the White House on Sept. 23, 2014 in Washington, DC. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

A number of American authority figures claim that the Khorasan group planned an attack involving a bomb capable of passing undetected through airport security systems. The theories abound; perhaps by lacing non-metallic objects such as toothpaste tubes and clothing with explosive material. Such concerns led to a decision in the summer to ban uncharged laptop computers and cellphones from U.S.-bound commercial airliners.

These theories only just now trotted out to explain the American administration's decision to embark on a full bombing campaign backed up by its allies to combat ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State, and including the Khorasan group. And although President Obama met with world leaders at the opening session of the UN General Assembly he made no effort to obtain UN agreement for the new Iraq/Syria military campaign against the Islamist terrorists.

He did present the campaign and its air strikes as a collaboration led by a multinational coalition inclusive of five Arab nations: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. President Hassan Rouhani of Iran characterized the airstrikes as illegal, unapproved by the government of Syria. He was seconded by President Vladimir Putin; both Russia and Iran staunch supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Butcher of Syria has his passionate defenders.

As far as President Assad is concerned, he isn't doing much complaining over the issue. True, he would prefer to be embraced as an integral partner in the mission to destroy the Islamic State, Al Nusra and the Khorasan group, along with all the other groups he considers to be terrorists rebelling against his regime where a Shiite government oppresses a Sunni population of its own. But he'll take whatever he can get, and he's getting what he wants, in actual fact.

Not only is Iran's Republic Guard al Quds force and Iran's Lebanese Hezbollah militias -- Shiites all -- fighting alongside Syrian troops, but now too is an international coalition of Westerners and Sunni Arab states, involved in battling the Sunni fanatics, the mujahedeen whose first purpose is to depose and dethrone Assad's regime, then destroy Iraq and Syria as what passes for normal countries in the Middle East. So no real complaints from Syria.

It is an uncomfortably bitter pill to swallow, however, one requiring a stiff chaser to get down, to appreciate the anomalous absurdity that the coalition that the U.S. has pieced together is defending a man and a regime that has slaughtered its own citizens with the use of artillery, chemical weapons, barrel bombs, starvation and more personal techniques like torture and murder of children and women.

The Khorasan group evidently is the motivator for American involvement to the full extent now seen of air strikes, with targets becoming increasingly elusive as the Islamic State fighters change tactics, no longer proudly driving Hummers and explosive-protective jeeps holding their black flags aloft, jeering at the terror they inspire in their victims. They have become less visible, but no less lethal, while some bombing missions return without having found targets.

The Khorasan group, comprised of al Qaeda operatives from Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Africa and Chechnya are obeying the orders of Ayman al-Zawahri, nearing "the execution phase of an attack either in Europe of the homeland", according to Lieutenant General William C. Mayville, Jr., in charge of operations for the Pentagon's Joint Staff. The latest strikes aimed for the group's leaders, notably a Kuwaiti associate of Osame bin Laden's, Muhsin al-Fadhli.