On September 13, the American public was first introduced to the Khorasan Group after the Associated Press broke a story calling the cell “a mix of hardened jihadis from Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Europe” that U.S. officials consider “a more direct and imminent threat to the United States than ISIS.”

Just 10 days later, on September 23, President Obama announced U.S. airstrikes against ISIS, the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Khorasan Group. In the wake of intelligence reports that the Khorasan Group was recruiting from the influx of Western jihadists in Syria in order to redirect them to attacks on European and U.S. soil, the U.S. launched 46 cruise missiles against Khorasan, which had reportedly reached the execution phase of an attack against the U.S. and Europe.

More than two months have passed since the U.S. conducted the strikes, and mentions of the Khorasan Group in the media have all but disappeared. Should we still care about the elusive group? Or has the threat been neutralized?

Reports in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. attack on Khorasan stated that the U.S. strikes killed Khorasan’s leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli. Indeed, the group’s deputy leader Sanafi al Nasr confirmed Fadhli’s death in two consecutive Twitter posts, praising Fadhli as a martyr. We now know that these reports were premature. U.S. officials maintain that Nasr’s confirmation was a hoax and Fadhli is suspected to remain at large. U.S. officials have also not confirmed the death of reported Khorasan member and Jabhat al-Nusra sniper Yousef al-Turki, despite Nasr’s Twitter post of a photo allegedly proving his death.

Despite initial characterizations of the airstrike as a success, officials now state that the Khorasan group has not been set back, and no plots have been significantly disrupted. On October 10, the Associated Press cited American intelligence officials who revealed that the U.S. strikes killed only one or two key Khorasan members and speaking to CNN on October 21, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center said that the Khorasan Group is “still in the same place” as it was before the September airstrikes.

While the Korashan Group might not be in the forefront of the public conversation in the same way as ISIS, reports of the group’s continued progress towards plotting an attack on America and Europe clearly demonstrate that the Khorasan Group poses a grave threat to global safety and security. For an in-depth analysis of the group and the ongoing Khorasan threat, see CEP’s report.