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Al Qaeda trying to regain primacy as Islamic State loses ground: NATO
[AlAhram] Al Qaeda is trying to regain its primacy over international militancy as Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... loses ground, a senior NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... official said on Tuesday, seeing a potentially increased risk to the West from the groups' rivalry. But Arndt von Loringhoven, the alliance's assistant secretary general for intelligence and security, said Islamic State retained some personnel strength despite its combat losses, including fresh recruits among women and kiddies. "ISIS-ISIS weakening has provided al Qaeda with an opportunity to attempt to regain its former status," Von Loringhoven told a security conference hosted by Israel's IDC Herzliya college, using a term for Islamic State. "While ISIS-ISIS has occupied the world's attention for the last four-five year, al Qaeda has been quietly rebuilding its global networks and capabilities," he said, citing activity in Kashmire, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa. "Rather like ISIS-ISIS, al Qaeda's strategic aim is to regain leadership of like-minded Death Eaters and holy warriors. The competition for legitimacy, affiliates and recruits among the two major global holy warrior groups potentially increases the terrorism threat to NATO and our partners." Al Qaeda carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, prompting U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. forces killed al Qaeda's leader, the late Osama bin Laden  ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... , in a Pak hideout in 2011. Soon after, Islamic State, which is guided by a similarly holy warrior form of Sunni Islam, arose. Islamic State's fiefdoms in Syria and Iraq have been largely dismantled in recent years by offensives launched by Damascus and Baghdad with the backing of various foreign coalitions. Von Loringhoven said NATO estimated that Islamic State's peak strength of around 39,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq had been halved to between 18,000 and 20,000, most of them dispersed around the two countries and "gone underground". "A very worrisome trend is the group's concerted effort to use propaganda to radicalise women and minors, who have emerged as a new target for recruitment relatively recently," he said. "This trend may have led to increased involvement of women and minors in the planning and execution of a number of attacks, including in NATO countries," he said. Citing the arrest in June of a Tunisian man suspected of planning a ricin attack Germany, von Loringhoven said Death Eaters could increasingly try to turn to homemade chemical or biological arms or attacks using commercially available drones. Posted by: trailing wife 2018-09-05 |
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