From Washington’s ‘Fear Factor’ playbook: The Khorasan Group is coming to get us

While our attention had been focused on ISIS, the new and heretofore unheard of Khorasan Group has been organizing and planning to implement a terror attack here in the United States.

Who are these people? According to U.S. officials, they are linked to al-Qaeda and consist of radical veteran fighters who are “running amok in the Middle East and bent on destruction” (primarily in the U.S.).

James Comey, head of the FBI, stated in an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, “Khorasan was working and you know, may still be working on an effort to attack the United States and our allies, and looking to do it very, very soon.” Comey also admitted he knew the identities of those Americans fighting alongside radical groups in the Middle East.

I don’t know about you but I find this very strange. Khorasan was initially introduced to the Western world in the middle of September and just as suddenly was never mentioned for the subsequent three weeks. And now, they’re back.They are supposedly very dangerous and may attack us very, very soon. But, we know very little about them and they have successfully remained off our radar screens.

But the icing on the cake came when Comey stated that the government knows the names of these Americans who have fought with ISIL. They have American passports and if they wish to return to the U.S., they have every right to do so. But, he promised that they will be tracked very carefully.

Initially, I thought Comey was rehearsing for some stand-up comedy routine he was performing. Here we have Americans who have been fighting alongside jihadist fundamentalists in Syria, a country we are bombing, and they are members of a terrorist group who is planning to attack the U.S.; the FBI knows their identities, and we are told they have the right of return. This is something even Palestinians do not enjoy and all they want is to go home.

I may have misunderstood, but there are heavy consequences in place for those Americans who give aid and support to any organizations that have been deemed terrorists by our government.

Case in point: In May of 2013, the Obama administration targeted and killed, Awlaki, a United States citizen. What was his crime?

Mr. Awlaki was a radical Muslim cleric, born in New Mexico, and, at the time of his death, living in Yemen. Awlaki made anti-U.S. speeches to members of his congregation and encouraged Muslims to confront and fight U.S. imperialism. The crime of “imminent” threat was that sometime in the future he might be involved in a terrorist act in the U.S.

Two weeks later, Awlaki’s 16 year old son, Abdulrahman al- Awlaki, who was born in Denver, Colorado, was targeted and killed. The explanation offered by U.S. officials was that because of who his father was, he might someday grow into a terrorist and commit acts against our homeland. His crime was that he had the wrong father.

A more recent story is about Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, a certified nurse’s aid who was arrested at Denver International Airport last April. She had planned to fly to Germany and eventually an ISIS camp near the Turkish border. She was taking this long trip because she was planning on meeting her suitor, Yousr Mouelhi, whom she met online and planned to marry. Unfortunately Yousr is a member of ISIS.

Conley thought she could be helpful in Syria by using her skills as a nurse’s aide.

In a plea agreement, Conley pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. She faces up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

As part of the plea agreement, Conley must provide law enforcement agencies with information about others looking to provide help to terrorist organizations abroad.

None of those mentioned above had any active role in organizing or implementing a terrorist attack. Yet, two men have been executed and a naive young woman has been sentenced to prison.

However, the 12 or so Americans who can be identified, are welcomed back on U.S. soil, despite the fact that the FBI claims they fought alongside terrorists and have been trained to implement terrorist attacks inside the U.S.

This whole scene seems unbelievable. As Glenn Greenwald stated, “The last thing the Washington political class and the economic elites who control it want is for this war to end. Anyone who doubts that should just look at the express statements from these leading Democrats, who wasted no time at all seizing on the latest Bad Guys to justify literally decades more of this profiteering and war-making.”

“As the Obama administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the ‘homeland.’ A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.

“The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded ‘The Khorasan Group.’ After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat—too radical even for Al Qaeda!—administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.”

People have called me a “conspiracy nut” because I don’t accept the official 9-11 story but the government needed a “New Pearl Harbor” to gather support for military engagement in the Middle East and 9-11 ensured they got it. It may be time now for the government to stage another event to gather support for its predicted 30-year war in Syria and its fight against ISIS.

BEWARE! It’s not the Khorasan Group that worries me, it’s our own government.

Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.