Hours Before Strikes, U.S. Official Says Targets Presented No 'Imminent Threat'
World (tags: USA, ISIS, Al Qaida, Terrorism, Middle East, Hegemony, Resources Theft )
Hours before the U.S. launched airstrikes ... a senior administration official told the Guardian ... that neither of the two groups targeted in the Monday night strikes ... posed an imminent threat to the U.S.
Eleonora Oldani (37)
Friday September 26, 2014, 11:56 pm
Hours before the U.S. launched airstrikes and cruise missiles into Syria, a senior administration official had told the Guardian that neither of the two groups targeted in the Monday night strikes -- the Islamic State militant group or the Al-Qaeda splinter group Khorasan -- posed an imminent threat to the U.S.
Earlier this month, Jeh Johnson, the US secretary of homeland security, said there was �no credible information that [Isis] is planning to attack the homeland�. The senior US official echoed that assessment, even as the US has launched a war to roll back the advances of Isis in Iraq and will soon conduct airstrikes against it in Syria. Nor did the official see an imminent threat to the US from al-Qaida�s Syrian affiliate, despite recent warnings about its so-called �Khorasan� cell targeting the US domestically.
By Tuesday morning, a Pentagon spokesperson had a new assessment. Speaking to ABC's 'Good Morning America,' Rear Admiral John Kirby said Monday night's strike on the Khorasan group, part of the Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, was prompted by information of an "imminent" attack on U.S. soil. The strikes in Syria appear to have eliminated the militants plotting the attack, Kirby added.
Aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters that the administration had been tracking a threat from Khorasan. "We believe that attack planning was imminent," he said.
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told a Sept. 17 conference in Washington that the Khorasan Group posed as great a threat to the U.S. as the Islamic State.
But the official who spoke with the Guardian yesterday repeated the idea -- stated by the administration elsewhere -- that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen is still the biggest danger to the U.S. homeland.
But that's not the case with the groups fighting in Syria. �There�s no real indication of either actual planning or capacity to launch such an attack into the US,� the senior official told the Guardian, referring to the risk of a Western-born militants using their passport to launch an attack in their homeland.
Even as it expands its assault on the Islamic State and other Syria-based militants aggressively, the administration appears to remain uncertain about what threat it seeks to counter in this latest operation. In making his case for the campaign in an address to the nation earlier this month, President Barack Obama spoke of "ultimately destroy[ing]" the Islamic State -- and made no mention of Khorasan. But as of Tuesday morning, it was that group he referred to as threatening Americans.
The president issued a statement Tuesday morning from the White House lawn. "Last night, we also took strikes to disrupt plotting against the United States and our allies by seasoned al Qaeda operatives in Syria who are known as the Khorosan Group," he said. "And 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." He did not respond to a question from the press about the specific threat presented to the American people by the targets of his airstrikes.
Justin Vale (13)
Saturday September 27, 2014, 4:54 am
why do they think this way anyway? they talk about stopping isis' source of income, when in reality what they are doing is causing thousands of times more pain then isis has. not the people under isis, the innocents will be taxed more to make up for the losses they incurred with our bombings. head of households will now be whipped in front of their wives and kids. young girls will be sold into slavery.
obama should have followed his instincts. and now with this indiscriminate bombing he's drawing more players into the game. all he had to do to stop isis was occupy baghdad. make it a marine corp town. but no, he bombed them. he hit them first. he struck at the islamic state first. they're gonna hit back. militants with billions will probably tend to do that if you try to kill them.
i just wish obama would hurry up and leave office.
Sandra Penna (135)
Noted. Thank you, Eleonora. What a stupid tragedy.
Angelika R (143)
Obama likely had a deal with Rouhani ahead of it, is my guess... we may have to wait till after midterms and see if he'll change in any way..unlikely though not totally ruled out..
WHEN will Clapper be finally sued???
As for "Khorasan"-I had a link somewhere else, that is a CIA invention, name never heard of, they're renamed Al Nusra front..
read *they'VE renamed..*
Bruce C D (89)
Great cartoon! While I agree with much of this article, I don't buy the premise that there is some grand conspiracy. U.S. foreign policy is a comedy of errors driven by special interests, political expediencies, and, yes, even good intentions. Were it all so simple as a NWO conspiracy!
One thing I find particularly troubling is the lack of respect for International Law and the sovereignty of nations by the U.S. I don't accept that preemptive wars are legal, just, or moral, and the same goes for killing people who theoretically "might" pose a threat at some distant point in the future.
Abo r (107)
Noted. Thank you, Eleonora.
This the US policy playing cards with 2 faces
Evelyn B (63)
I agree with Bruce about the cartoon - great!
What I cannot understand is how, over and over again, we have the pattern of support for a relatively minor group of players, building them up as opposition to a power that geo-politics want undermined ... then they get out of control,, become a "monster" and another group is strengthened to counter them ... only to escape control, become a new "monster" ... again & again. Where will the peshmerga turn, once their immediate value against ISIS/Daesh is over? It's like a macabre game of musical chairs, with bloodshed instead of music. The only winners are the munitions industries, who "refine" their products based on experience - and sell to all sides.
If only the peace industry were such a money spinner - we might have more hope
Parsifal S (96)
Saturday September 27, 2014, 10:40 am
ISIS-War Is Peace: Obama Vs. Orwell This is what 'our' Nobel Peace Prize Winning President said in front of the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2014 - the same day U.S. military weapons hit some 168 targets including a dozen oil refineries in Syria...
heather g (46)
Sunday September 28, 2014, 12:47 am
How those millions of people suffer - over and over again. They are bombed into poverty - with infrastructure hospitals, schools and farms destroyed and their lives ripped into shreds...
Lois Jordan (63)
Sunday September 28, 2014, 2:58 pm
Noted. Thanks, Eleonora. As the old saying goes, "Follow The Money." This twisted, tangled web of our own creation has American arms; so we are, in effect, fighting against ourselves. This American Empire is about to implode into itself, and I'm sorry that Obama is going to catch all the flak that should've also fallen on Dubya and Cheney. It didn't have to be this way.
Graziella Veri (0)
Sunday October 26, 2014, 8:37 am
noted,liked and shared.Thank you
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