The Pentagon Re-Packaged Al Qaeda As ‘Khorasan Group’ To Sell Attack On Syria

Only after the US conducted strikes in Syria against the Khorasan Group, national security officials began offering a “more nuanced picture” on the threat that verged on being outright defensive.

Dan Wright
By Dan Wright
Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville speaks about US operations in Syria, following U.S. military strikes against 17 separate targets connected to an al-Qaida cell in Syria known as the Khorasan Group, U.S. officials say, Sept. 23, 2014. (AP/Cliff Owen)

Published in partnership with Shadowproof. United States officials misled the public about a Syrian terrorist group, the Khorasan Group, in the run up to air strikes in the country in 2014. The group was not new, as officials suggested, but essentially a group of reinforcements for the country’s Al Qaeda affiliate. In September 2014, just

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Aleppo Evacuations Slow As Syrian Rebels Burn Evacuation Buses

Syrian rebels have burned at least five buses assigned to evacuate wounded and sick people from two villages in northern Syria.

Jason Ditz
By Jason Ditz
Smoke rises in green government buses, in Idlib province, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016. Militants have burned at least five buses assigned to evacuate wounded and sick people from two villages in northern Syria. (SANA via AP)

Gunfire stalled the evacuation of civilians from Aleppo on Friday, and it started up again over the weekend. The evacuations were a lot slower than they had been on Thursday, however, with only a few hundred getting out and only one of five sets of buses running in the Aleppo exodus. The issue was the same one that caused struggles on Wednesday,

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Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Spearheads Effort To Cut US Funding To ISIS, Al-Qaida

The Hawaiian representative accused the U.S. government of routinely violating the law by ‘directly or indirectly supporting allies and partners of groups like al-Qaida and ISIS with money, weapons, intelligence and other support in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.’

Kit O'Connell
By Kit O'Connell
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI., nominates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., for President of the United States during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

AUSTIN, Texas --- Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, is spearheading a bipartisan effort to force the United States to stop arming extremist groups in Syria. The bill, known as the Stop Arming Terrorists Act, would make it illegal for U.S. funds to be spent in ways that directly or indirectly support terrorist groups such as al-Qaida

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Obama Orders Attacks On al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front In Syria

The move is a dramatic shift after recent months of condemning Russian strikes on the group.

Jason Ditz
By Jason Ditz
Fighters from Nusra Front,. Al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib province.

According to officials familiar with the situation, President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to begin conducting military strikes against the leadership of the al–Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, a major rebel faction operating within Syria. The Nusra Front holds materially the entire Idlib Province, and also has significant territory within

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New York Times Admits Key Al Qaeda Role In Aleppo

In a backhand way, The New York Times admits that the U.S.-backed “moderate” rebels in east Aleppo are fighting alongside Al Qaeda jihadists, an almost casual admission of this long-obscured reality, writes Robert Parry.

Robert Parry
By Robert Parry
Syrian rebels walk in an alley in Idlib, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012. (AP Photo)

As much as The New York Times and the mainstream U.S. media have become propaganda outlets on most foreign policy issues, like the one-sided coverage of the bloody Syrian war, sometimes the truth seeps through in on-the-ground reporting by correspondents, even ones who usually are pushing the “propo.” Such was the case with Anne Barnard’s new

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US Government Acknowledges Al-Qaeda Not A Priority In Syria

“The only thing that stands between where we are now and a permanent and enduring ceasefire in Syria is Bashar al-Assad and his supporters.”

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
Fighters from Nusra Front,. Al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib province.

Last week, the U.S. State Department acknowledged that al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jabhat al-Nusra is not a “priority” for the United States’ efforts in Syria. One might ask, then: if al-Qaeda in Syria is not a priority for the war on terror, what is? State Department spokesman John Kirby provided some useful insight into this dilemma,

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