Late last week, Associated Press' Ken Dilanian – the first to unveil the new Khorasan Product in mid-September – published a new story explaining that just days after bombing "Khorasan" targets in Syria, high-ranking U.S. officials seemingly backed off all their previous claims of an "imminent" threat from the group. Headlined "U.S. Officials Offer More Nuanced Take on Khorasan Threat," it noted that "several U.S. officials told reporters this week that the group was in the final stages of planning an attack on the West, leaving the impression that such an attack was about to happen." But now: Senior U.S. officials offered a more nuanced picture Thursday of the threat they believe is posed by an al-Qaida cell in Syria targeted in military strikes this week, even as they defended the decision to attack the militants. James Comey, the FBI director, and Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, each acknowledged that the U.S. did not have precise intelligence about where or when the cell, known as the Khorasan Group, would attempt to strike a Western target. . . . Kirby, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, said, "I don't know that we can pin that down to a day or month or week or six months….We can have this debate about whether it was valid to hit them or not, or whether it was too soon or too late…We hit them. And I don't think we need to throw up a dossier here to prove that these are bad dudes." Regarding claims that an attack was "imminent," Comey said: "I don't know exactly what that word means…'imminent'" — a rather consequential admission given that said imminence was used as the justification for launching military action in the first place. Even more remarkable, it turns out the very existence of an actual "Khorasan Group" was to some degree an invention of the American government. NBC's Engel, the day after he reported on the U.S. Government's claims about the group for Nightly News, seemed to have serious second thoughts about the group's existence, tweeting: Lied to once again, with the eager assistance of the U.S. media. And can we stop using this nonsense word "homeland"? Enough with the bullshit, "folks".
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Late last week, Associated Press' Ken Dilanian – the first to unveil the new Khorasan Product in mid-September – published a new story explaining that just days after bombing "Khorasan" targets in Syria, high-ranking U.S. officials seemingly backed off all their previous claims of an "imminent" threat from the group. Headlined "U.S. Officials Offer More Nuanced Take on Khorasan Threat," it noted that "several U.S. officials told reporters this week that the group was in the final stages of planning an attack on the West, leaving the impression that such an attack was about to happen." But now: Senior U.S. officials offered a more nuanced picture Thursday of the threat they believe is posed by an al-Qaida cell in Syria targeted in military strikes this week, even as they defended the decision to attack the militants. James Comey, the FBI director, and Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, each acknowledged that the U.S. did not have precise intelligence about where or when the cell, known as the Khorasan Group, would attempt to strike a Western target. . . . Kirby, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, said, "I don't know that we can pin that down to a day or month or week or six months….We can have this debate about whether it was valid to hit them or not, or whether it was too soon or too late…We hit them. And I don't think we need to throw up a dossier here to prove that these are bad dudes." Regarding claims that an attack was "imminent," Comey said: "I don't know exactly what that word means…'imminent'" — a rather consequential admission given that said imminence was used as the justification for launching military action in the first place. Even more remarkable, it turns out the very existence of an actual "Khorasan Group" was to some degree an invention of the American government. NBC's Engel, the day after he reported on the U.S. Government's claims about the group for Nightly News, seemed to have serious second thoughts about the group's existence, tweeting:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/28/u-s-officials-invented-terror-group-justify-bombing-syria/
Typos courtesy of my iPhone
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