Ad men call the tactic bait-and-switch. America said it was going to go after the jihadists who call themselves Islamic State (is), and allies joined the fight for that purpose. But the first wave of strikes into Syria did not target is. They hit a different jihadist group, one that has in the past been hostile to is. According to American officials, the 40 Tomahawk missiles that struck eight targets to the west of Aleppo on September 23rd were aimed at what it calls the "Khorasan group", a cell operating under the aegis of Jabhat al-Nusra (jan), a relatively powerful Syrian rebel outfit that has declared allegiance to al-Qaeda. America believed the Khorasan group, said to be linked to the imaginative bomb-makers of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, was plotting imminent terrorist attacks on the West.
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