Islamic State (IS) is a radical Islamist group that has seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq.
Its brutal tactics, which includes mass killings and abductions of members of religious and ethnic minorities, as well as the beheadings of soldiers and journalists, have sparked fear and outrage across the world and prompted US military intervention.
This all sounds all too familiar to most United States (U.S.) readers, who may recall Al-Qaeda imposing similar tactics upon seizing Afghanistan and launching its own insurgency within Iraq. In fact, it is precisely this insurgency that spawned the Islamic State as we know it today.
Tawhid wa al-Jihad was a Sunni Islamic group who had been waging a guerilla war upon occupying U.S. forces for nearly a year. This conflict took a new form when the group’s leader, the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and formed Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which became a major force in the insurgency.
After Zarqawi’s death in 2006, AQI began to falter. AQI was steadily weakened by the U.S. troop surge and the creation of Sahwa (Awakening) councils by Sunni Arab tribesmen who rejected the group’s brutality. The fledgling group chose a new leader in 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who renamed the group the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI).
The ISI largely faded from the public eye until the Arab Spring. The civil war in Syria created a new outlet for which ISI could enact its dream of an Islamic State, only this time with its vision broader than just Iraq.
By April of 2013, Islamic State in Iraq had once again changed its name to simply the Islamic State. Its goal was clear, a creation of a new nation disbanding the modern borders and uniting all Arabs of a Sunni Islam persuasion.
This is where relations between IS and Al-Qaeda broke down. Al-Baghdadi declared himself the leader, or Caliph, of this internationally unrecognized “Islamic State.” Al-Qaeda refused to recognize this, as it would mean Al-Baghdadi would have control over the international terrorist organization that is Al-Qaeda.
This has lead to a new stage of chaos in the Middle East, where nations such as Yemen have become battlegrounds where these two well funded, well equipped terrorist organizations fight out their differences via mass shootings and suicide bomb tactics.
With both groups having the common aim of eliminating U.S and Israeli influence in the middle east, no matter who wins the infighting between IS and Al-Qaeda, it will not be good for the United States.