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Editor's Weekly: What The Media Won't Tell You About Khorassan

Detail from woodcut of 1878 parade
Missouri History Museum Photographs and Prints Collections

The bomb strikes in Syria this week put the spotlight on the Khorasan group, a little-known offshoot of al-Qaida. But once again, as skeptics on the left and right so often suspect, the media don’t seem to be telling the whole story.

The media didn't tell you, for example, that in St. Louis, we spell Khorassan with a double S – or that we're already quite familiar with the sometimes-controversial history of a local group with Khorassan connections.

On Tuesday, All Things Considered host Melissa Block asked NPR national security correspondent Dina Temple-Raston to explain what's going on in the Middle East. Melissa didn't ask, but perhaps she and Dina would like to know more about the Midwest operations of a shadowy organization that goes by the name of its leader, the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.

BLOCK: “The group is little known. Is it new?”

TEMPLE-RASTON: “The heart of this group, even though we'd never heard about it before, is made up of al-Qaida's true believers. I mean these are people who've been in the fight for decades.”

Actually, Dina, the Khorassan group has been operating in St. Louis for well over a century. According to news reports, members gather once a year to perform certain rituals, introduce their daughters to the Prophet and honor a so-called Queen of Love and Beauty. In recent decades, in an attempt to curry popular favor, the group also has organized festivals that sometimes coincide with the national celebration of independence from colonial rule.

Back in the 1950s, group members called Bengal Lancers were sometimes shown on television marching in traditional robes with crude weapons. But usually, the followers of the Prophet mingle with the civilian population, making it hard to identify and isolate those involved.

BLOCK: “And who’s the group leader?”

TEMPLE-RASTON: “His name is Muhsin al-Fadhli, and he's about 33. And he's been part of the al-Qaida inner circle since he was a teenager.”

Kudos to Dina for figuring out the leader’s real name. In St. Louis, he goes by title only, or variations of it – the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, the Prophet or occasionally VP. His true identity has been revealed only once, as VP expert Richard Weiss explained in his definitive account of the Prophet and of the Khorassan group's impact in St. Louis.

Program title page from the Sixth Veiled Prophet Festival
Credit Wikipedia
Program title page from the Sixth Veiled Prophet Festival

That revelation happened as the result of a long-running feud with a rival faction called ACTION and led by Percy Green. ACTION was demanding jobs, and its recruits sometimes gained attention by chaining themselves to Prophet organization vehicles known as floats. In 1972, ACTION infiltrators breached security at the Prophet’s annual ritual and tore off his veil, outing Tom K. Smith, a Monsanto executive.

With his identity compromised, Smith is widely believed to have been replaced. In fact, experts say the organization rotates its leadership frequently, with no single person staying around long enough to be tracked.

BLOCK: “The real question then is how much of a threat is it?”

TEMPLE-RASTON: “Yeah, it's hard to tell, really…there was talk about exploding clothes and toothpaste bombs. We don't know if those were aspirational or operational plans.”

There’s been some discussion about clothes and threats in St. Louis, too, though thankfully nothing about toothpaste bombs. For example, some longtime Prophet watchers think his crown, veil and robe resemble the garb of a Klansman. A spokesman for the Veiled Prophet has disputed that interpretation.

The spokesman also has discounted speculation that the Prophet's annual parade began amidst labor strife as a way for business elites to promote respect for hierarchy. Some analysts say the Veiled Prophet organization continues to stoke class conflict. But others point out that it also has a reputation for charitable works that benefit a region where delivery of services can be stymied by petty potentates and seething rivalries.

On its website, the Khorassan organization claims the Veiled Prophet is patterned after a mythical figure and says his followers only want what's best for St. Louis. But much remains unknown, including whether the followers will maintain their sense of humor when mentioned in a column that make jokes about serious matters in the news.

Melissa and Dina, recent coverage of Ferguson by an army of news organization has convinced many St. Louisans that it's hard for reporters to master the local nuances of a story with international implications. Would you like to know more about this one? Meet me at the Khorassan Room at the Chase and we can talk.

Margaret Wolf Freivogel is the editor of St. Louis Public Radio. She was the founding editor of the St. Louis Beacon, a nonprofit news organization, from 2008 to 2013. A St. Louis native, Margie previously worked for 34 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a reporter, Washington correspondent and assistant managing editor. She has received numerous awards for reporting as well as a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis Press Club and the Missouri Medal of Honor from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She is a past board member of the Investigative News Network and a past president of Journalism and Women Symposium. Margie graduated from Kirkwood High School and Stanford University. She is married to William H. Freivogel. They have four grown children and seven grandchildren. Margie enjoys rowing and is a fan of chamber music.