Al Jazeera correspondant: Khorasan is an invented name

Imran Khan, roving correspondant for Al Jazeera, has written on the controversy surrounding the state of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Khorasan group, claiming the name is most likely cooked-up:

"My guess, and this comes from talking to people across the spectrum, is that Khorasan is a term that may well have been coined by intelligence analysts that has been picked up by politicians and then an unquestioning US Media that has turned it into a group that should be feared. It's classic self-fulfilling prophecy theory. Call something a problem and eventually it will become a problem. 

"What it clearly isn't is a name that Jihadists know or use. To that end, why would the US government put the name out there? Clearly, it's a short-hand that they see as being media friendly, and it pushes the idea that there are groups out there that operate in a shadowy manner and use ancient names to hark back to an ancient time."