Does Al-Qaeda like ISIS?

Despite the fears of U.S. and European security officials, Iraq did not prove an Afghanistan-like incubator for attacks on the U.S. homeland and the West. Al Qaeda in Iraq's indiscriminate violence—including against its fellow Sunnis—eventually led to a backlash from the Sunni tribes that, when combined with the 2006 U.S. read more

The more so Al qaeda-affiliated radical Sunni theologians thought that the ISIS declaration of caliphate was way premature; there was no general consensus about it from amongst the Muslims. Thus it is not a true caliphate. read more

Unlike Al Qaeda, it looks like a winner: triumphant in Iraq and Syria, taking on the Shi’a apostates and even the United States at a local level, and presenting a vision of Islamic governance that Al Qaeda cannot match. read more

ISIS is fighting more like a conventional army than al Qaeda ever did. It has seized territory and declared a caliphate in northern Syria and Iraq. ISIS is also employing more conventional military tactics, using assault rifles and grenades. read more