Meet the Newest Islamist Boy Band Trying to Kill You: The Khorasan Group

Today on NRO

JIM GERAGHTY: Trying to diagnose disconnected elites, David Brooks accidentally exemplifies them. Snap Out of It Yourself!

JONAH GOLDBERG: By any objective measure, things have been going great for women for a long time. What 'War on Women'?

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: When plans unravel, fists are clenched. The Unmanageable Man.

TOM ROGAN: While the Islamic State uses brute force, Khorasan is creative and strategically savvy. The Khorasan Threat.

SLIDESHOW: People's Climate March.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

September 24, 2014

To my Jewish readers, L'Shana Tova! To everybody else . . . Happy Wednesday night!

Meet the Newest Islamist Boy Band Trying to Kill You: The Khorasan Group

A fascinating update for those of you like me, wondering who this Khorasan Group is, and why they seemed to come out of nowhere as a prominent threat to Americans:

Among the targets of U.S. strikes across Syria early Tuesday was the Khorasan Group — a collection of senior al-Qaeda members who have moved into Syria.

The group was actively plotting against a U.S. homeland target and Western targets, a senior U.S. official told CNN on Tuesday. The United States hoped to surprise the group by mixing strikes against it with strikes against ISIS targets.

I can only imagine how that discussion went. "Look, our bombers are going to be in the neighborhood anyway. Why not swing by and drop a few big ones on the hideout on the way home?"

Or how do you think this sudden arrival of U.S. munitions was greeted at these Khorason sites? "WHAT THE HELL? QUICK, SOMEBODY PUT UP A SIGN SAYING 'WE'RE NOT ISIS!'"

The plots were believed to be in an advanced stage, the second U.S. official said. There were indications that the militants had obtained materials and were working on new improvised explosive devices that would be hard to detect, including common hand-held electronic devices and airplane carry-on items such as toiletries.

The intelligence community discovered Khorasan plots against the United States within the past week, an intelligence source with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The intelligence source did not give an intended target but said the plots potentially involved a bomb made of a nonmetallic device like a toothpaste container or clothes dipped in explosive material.

A plot involving concealed bombs on airplanes "was just one option they were looking at" a U.S. official briefed on the matter told CNN's Pamela Brown.

I'm kind of impressed that we in the public are only learning about Khorasan now. Maybe our post-Snowden government can keep a secret after all.

Then there's this fascinating detail:

CENTCOM's statement spoke of "action to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests" by al Qaeda veterans in Khorasan . . .

One of those veterans is believed to be Muhsin al Fadhli, a short and slight Kuwaiti who is 33 years old. A security source in the Middle East tells CNN that al Fadhli arrived in Syria in April 2013 and began working with Jabhat al Nusra. Nine months later, Clapper sounded the first warning about al Nusra's goals beyond Syria, saying it "does have aspirations for attacks on the homeland."

At some point, al Fadhli appears to have parted company with al Nusra — perhaps, according to the source, because it saw him as in league with Iran, where he had been based as al Qaeda's senior representative. The source says al Fadhli's new focus on "external operations" was revealed by one of his bodyguards, named as Abu Rama, who was recently arrested by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Hmm. Assad arrests some Islamist SOB, and then somehow we learn about plans for attacks against Americans.

Is there some secret back channel to Assad? And is he the most helpful chemical-weapon-using maniacal brutal dictator we could hope for?

Macintosh HD:Users:jimgeraghty:Pictures:Kerry Dines With Assad.jpg
"Just like old times, right, John? Okay, let me tell you the latest we've learned from interrogations . . ."

Expect a Lot More 'Soccer Mom' Ads in North Carolina

Remember when I showed you the television commercials for Republican Senate candidate Thom Tillis, and asked if they were too soft?

Are the TV ads from Thom Tillis's Senate campaign in North Carolina too generic or nice? Look them over, and you can see the points Tillis and his team want to emphasize:

Tillis raised school funding and raised teachers pay.
He's been a paperboy.
Hagan voted with Obama 96 percent of the time.
He'll work with both parties.

Well, here's the answer . . .

The most recent Fox News poll in North Carolina has Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan winning among women, 46 percent to 30 percent.

The most recent PPP survey finds, "Hagan continues to have a massive advantage with women at 49 percent to 33 percent."

And then the most recent Civitas poll, which has Hagan ahead among women, 52 percent to 38 percent.

So there you have it. Thom Tillis is trailing by a handful of points against an incumbent stuck in the mid-40s, and she's hanging on because of her margin among women. So North Carolina television watchers can continue to hear more about Tillis' paper route, and his first election as president of the PTA, and more visuals of him at the diner and in the school library.

Not the red meat that conservatives want to see, but then again, Thom Tillis already has most conservatives voting for him — 71 percent of self-identified conservatives in the Civitas poll, 76 percent of self-identified Republicans in the Fox News poll, and 81 percent of the self-identified "very conservative" and 63 percent of the "somewhat conservative" in the PPP poll.

Some of you may be asking, "Why isn't he getting 90 or 100 percent?" But remember that some portion of self-identified conservatives have completely misidentified themselves. A national Gallup poll found 20 percent of self-identified conservatives say they have a positive view of socialism.

One other thought — as mentioned in last week's article, North Carolina is one of the most expensive states to run in this cycle (at least one of the most expensive with a competitive Senate race). Yes, the DSCC committed $9 million to helping save Kay Hagan. But if they find themselves needing to triage . . . all that money going to help her might go a lot farther in Arkansas, or Alaska, or Louisiana, or some other cheaper state.

Everyone Gets Nasty E-Mails. That's Life.

Here's Ace, reacting to Politico's interview with former IRS official Lois Lerner, making one of those points I wish I had written:

Here's a specific criticism I have in the Politico piece: It reports, almost immediately, that Lerner has received derogatory emails, including one quoted by Politico calling her a "dirty Jew."

Now, this kind of journalism — the parade of horribles from Internet Nasties — has the inevitable effect of creating sympathy for the person receiving the email, and, more importantly, discrediting all critics opposed to the recipient, even though very few people critical of Lerner (apparently just the one guy) was so filled with rage and so lacking in self-control or discretion that he wrote an anti-Semitic Email Nasty to her.

In a court of law this would not be permitted, as it is irrelevant to the main story (Lerner's actual guilt or innocence) and is also unduly prejudicial.
Now, reporters are not lawyers in court, of course. But the fundamental emotional bias of such a mention should give them pause.

They could respond and say, "What does it matter if such a statement prejudices people against Lerner's critics, or biases them in Lerner's favor? We are not concerned with guessing how The Facts may impact a reader's mind."

Well, I would respond to that — after I'd stopped laughing at how ridiculously dishonest that claim was — by noting that many people, many many people on the Right, are frequently the recipients of death threats and Internet Nasties from the Left, but the media never seems to get around to reporting such things.

Seems to me they are aware of the prejudicial emotional impact of such things, and do in fact take the prejudicial impact into account when writing a story. But they only screen such things out of stories about people on the right.

When a public figure complains about hate mail or nasty e-mail, it's sort of a dye marker for a certain amount of self-regard or self-pity. It's not that receiving hate mail or nasty messages isn't an unpleasant thing; it's horrible. I know it. Many people, including myself, have publicly yearned for a nicer, more polite, more respectful public discourse.

But the Internet went mainstream back in the 1990s, and nasty e-mail has been around for as long as there's been e-mail. Ditto for nasty comments in the comments sections. The combination of anonymity and an audience brings out the obnoxious, profane, and hateful in many, many people.

Getting hateful e-mail may be awful, but it isn't unusual. It doesn't make you uniquely targeted or subject to a distinctive amount of public hostility. And it certainly doesn't necessarily make a statement about everyone who disagrees with you or even criticizes you.

If you see someone mentioning all the hate mail they get, it is usually a subtle or not-so-subtle effort to paint their critics as a baying, nasty, bigoted mob.

ADDENDA: This sounds like a parody: RepublicansArePeopleToo.com…

Four episodes of the pop culture podcast with Mickey White are now up, another one coming soon. I had to explain "Pauline Kaelism" to Mickey in the most recent one. It will probably not surprise you that she's a bigger fan of cosplay and Halloween than I am.

Thanks to everyone buying the book. I'm not supposed to discuss specific sales figures, but we're knocking on the door of a symbolic number (at least to me) so if you've been thinking about it, please do. The Weed Agency is . . . $9.97 on Amazon, $7.99 on Kindle, $9.97 at Barnes and Noble, $9.99 on Nook, and IndieBound can steer you to an independent bookseller near you. One reader asked if I had anything against Books-a-Million, and I don't, I just forgot to look it up there: $11.41 over on that site, $9.99 for the e-book.

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