Al-Qaida factions reuniting under ISIS

 

Rival al-Qaida jihadist militant groups are begrudgingly praising the exploits of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, or ISIS, as it steamrolls through Iraq from northeast Syria in order to create a caliphate subject to strict Shariah law.

ISIS’ success in Iraq is due largely to other Sunni and ex-Baathist groups joining its numbers, although there are increasing reports that factions within ISIS in Iraq already have had violent exchanges between them.

One such case has been a gun battle in recent days between ISIS and the ex-Baathists of the Naqshbani Army, which initially joined ISIS to aid its sweep through Iraq and may have given the jihadist group access to a sarin production facility, as WND recently reported.

Nevertheless, ISIS’ success to date has prompted an increasing number of fighters from al-Qaida groups to switch to ISIS, which was excommunicated from al-Qaida central by its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, creating the prospect that ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, could become the new face of al-Qaida.

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