Middle East
Al-Qaeda asks IS militants to rejoin group and fight West, says analyst
U.S. intelligence analysts are closely watching al-Qaeda’s overtures to the renegade Islamic State to reunite and fight the West. While a full reconciliation is not on the horizon, there is evidence the two groups have curtailed their feud and are cooperating on the Syrian battlefield. The al-Qaeda global terror network recently has extended olive branches to the rival Islamic State through messages released by its affiliates around the world. The most recent was on Oct. 17 from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based offshoot that denounced the airstrikes and called on rival militant groups to stop their infighting and together train their sights on Western targets.
Al-Qaeda is saying ‘Let’s just have a truce in Syria.’ That is what’s underway now… What we have seen is that local commanders are entering into local truces. There are definitely areas where the two groups are not fighting.Tom Joscelyn, who tracks terror groups for the Long War Journal
So far, IS militants, who were kicked out of al-Qaeda in May after disobeying its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have not publicly responded to calls to return to the al-Qaeda fold. Yet activists and those who trace jihadi messaging say local truces have materialized across the country. It’s unclear how any reunification would affect the threat of attacks on the West. One school of thought is that if the two groups continue to spend time and resources fighting each other, it diminishes the terror threat to the West. Experts tracking terrorist networks say, however, that continued infighting also could incite a competition over who would be the first to launch a new attack against the West.
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