February 20, 2014 | Quote
Split within Al Qaeda Over Syrian Rebels Grows
Sharp divisions among al Qaeda terrorists in the Middle East are continuing despite a recent appeal by the group’s top leader to heal the rift between two warring factions.
While the split within the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington is real, so far it has not diminished the threat of attack against Americans, according to officials and counterterrorism analysts.
The divisions pit the remnants of al Qaeda’s central organization and its supporters in the Middle East and North Africa against a splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
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Thomas Joscelyn, a counterterrorism expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said central al Qaeda disavowal of ISIL is very significant but not well understood.
Jihadists and others are backing ISIL but the leading thinkers within al Qaeda and the broader jihadist movement are backing the decision to eject ISIL.
“ISIL was never al Qaeda’s preferred play inside Syria,” Jocelyn said. “Instead, senior al Qaeda operatives were embedded within Ahrar al Sham, another extremist group that is not even formally recognized as a branch of al Qaeda.”
The main al Qaeda central representative in Syria is a senior member of Ahrar al Sham, highlighting its importance to senior leaders outside the country.
“In addition, al Qaeda’s senior leadership helped spawn [al Nusra Front] and agreed that it should remain separate from ISIL,” he said. Both the front and Ahrar al Sham are the kind of groups al Qaeda is backing in Syria, because “they are more capable of winning a broader base of popular support than ISIL, which is clumsy, heavy-handed, and ruled by an egomaniac,” Joscelyn said.