Fourteen years after the September 11th attacks, al Qaeda is not what it once was, and is losing out to the Islamic State as the prime Islamist movement in the Middle East.
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Thursday made that split evident, by formally declaring war on the Islamic State.
Zawahiri took exception to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s actions, saying that he “did not consult Muslims” before establishing a new caliphate, and naming himself Caliph.
“Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers did not leave us a choice, for they have demanded that all the mujahideen reject their confirmed pledges of allegiance, and to pledge allegiance to them for what they claim of a caliphate,” he said, further accusing the Islamic State leader of “sedition,” according to the U.K.’s Mirror.
The Islamic State was formally renounced by al Qaeda shortly before it started making huge territorial gains in Syria and Iraq in the summer of 2014, but Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden in 2011, seems to have taken it a step further this week.
The Islamic State grew out of the former al Qaeda in Iraq, which throttled coalition forces and the civilian population of Iraq in the middle of the last decade.
The Washington Examiner reported earlier this month on how al Qaeda and its affiliates have begun fighting the Islamic State in Syria and elsewhere, and that former General David Petraeus, made famous by his “surge” in the Iraq War and leading a “counterinsurgency” in Afghanistan, thinks the U.S. should consider siding with an al Qaeda group, al-Nusra, fighting the Islamic State in Syria.
