Al-Qaeda’s central leadership broke with one of its most powerful branch commanders in an apparent attempt to stem the deadly infighting that has erupted in Syria among the militant Islamic factions trying to bring down President Bashar Assad.
More broadly, the announcement Monday appeared to be a move by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri to reassert the terror network’s prominence in the jihad movement across the Middle East.
The dispute is between al-Qaeda’s central leadership and a faction known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq, formed the Islamic State last spring to expand his operations into neighboring Syria, defying direct orders by al-Zawahri not to do so. Al-Zawahri named a different group, the Nusra Front, as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. The Associated Press
