Al-Qaeda–Islamic State conflict

Precursor to the split Originally, the modern predecessor of Islamic State, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, was created in 1999 and led by its first leader, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. He pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in 2004, turning his group into an affiliated branch of Al-Qaeda called Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Al-Zarqawi was named the first Emir of the Two Rivers. After his pledge of allegiance, however, Al-Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden's relations would turn sour due to Al-Zarqawi's brutal and extreme policies, which his brutal suicide bombing campaigns against both Western, Russian, Chinese and even Shia Muslim groups greatly disturbed Al-Qaeda's core leader. To avoid division, then-deputy of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, sent a delegation in order to negotiate to force Al-Zarqawi to reduce his brutal policies and realign with Al-Qaeda's major priorities, but the delegation was intercepted and arrested by American troops, derailing the final attempt to rein in Al-Zarqawi's AQI group. However, with Al-Zarqawi killed by an airstrike in 7 June 2006, AQI reformed into the Islamic State of Iraq, and still affirmed allegiance with Al-Qaeda. However, repeated Iraqi, American and coalition forces hunting resulted in the decimation of the majority of IS force at the time, with two leaders killed. However, behind the scene, Nouri Al-Maliki, then-Prime Minister of Iraq, had systemically purged the most experienced officers of the Iraqi Armed Forces, marginalising the minority Sunni in favour of his Shia group; this was capitalised by Islamic State of Iraq to bring in new and fresh recruits to the group. However, it's the outbreak of the Syrian civil war that the Islamic State was able to exploit from this gap via multifaceted alliances with various Syrian rebel groups to fight off the Assad regime. Split On 8 April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, released an audio statement in which he claimed that the Islamic State of Iraq, and Al-Nusra Front, two Al-Qaeda affiliated groups, were merging into one group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the then-leader of al-Nusra Front, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, both rejected the merger. Al-Sharaa claimed that he and all the other al-Nusra leaders had never given permission to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to merge the groups. Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote a letter to both al-Sharaa and al-Baghdadi, who were both under his command at the time, in which he stated that he does not permit them to merge. He also sent a diplomat to put an end to tensions. al-Baghdadi responded to al-Zawahiri's letter, and declared that he did not need al-Zawahiri's approval to do the merge, and that he was moving forward with the merge either way. The merge happened, with the Islamic State of Iraq and some Al-Nusra fighters merging to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Al-Nusra's leadership, as well as Al-Qaeda, both officially rejected the merge, in which the tension resulted in the newly founded ISIL being isolated from the global jihadist network, which was dominated by Al-Qaeda. In October 2013, months after the merge, al-Zawahiri gave al-Baghdadi a final chance to disband ISIL, and return the jihadist movement in Syria to al-Nusra, and revive the Islamic State of Iraq and let it take control of the jihadist movement in Iraq. al-Baghdadi refused to comply with al-Zawahiri, and ISIL continued to operate in both Iraq and Syria. As a "Caliphate", it claimed authority over all Muslims and Muslim lands worldwide. The Islamic State's claim of being a legitimate Islamic caliphate was rejected by many Muslims, and was also rejected by Al-Qaeda. The Islamic State was described as being "far more ruthless" than al-Qaeda. For example, while Al-Qaeda considers Shia Muslims to be disbelievers, they have also condemned the Islamic State's killing sprees against Shias. Osama bin Laden, despite his hatred for Shias, wanted to put the differences aside to establish a Sunni-Shia alliance to counter the supposed Jewish-Christian alliance which he claims was made to fight Islam. The Islamic State does not tolerate Shias at all. ==Conflict==

Since its establishment, the Islamic State was hostile to Al-Qaeda and its allies, including the Taliban. The conflict between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State conflict was also referred to as the "Jihadist civil war". Also, since the establishment of the Islamic State, many Al-Qaeda affiliated groups became fractured, with certain factions of the groups pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, while the rest opposed the Islamic State. These groups include Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Caucasus Emirate, Abu Sayyaf, Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, the Uqba ibn Nafi Brigade, and Al-Shabaab. The first instance of the conflict was during the rise of the Islamic State in northwestern Iraq in 2014. Jama'at Ansar al-Islam began attacking Islamic State positions. The clashes continued for months, in which the Islamic State dominated. Some Jama'at Ansar al-Islam militants and commanders joined the Islamic State. Jama'at Ansar al-Islam later drastically declined, although remained active and continued to fight the Islamic State. Initially, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did not oppose the Islamic State, and many AQAP members actually supported the Islamic State and its establishment of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the former leader of AQAP, also intended to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State if they came to Yemen. However, when the Islamic State – Yemen Province was established in 2015, AQAP remained with al-Qaeda, and some AQAP members defected to ISYP. This brought the al-Qaeda–Islamic State conflict to Yemen. These two groups continued to clash throughout the Yemeni civil war. Al-Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State fight against each other in the Syrian civil war, at the same time while fighting the Syrian opposition. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State also fight on opposing sides in the Mali War and the Boko Haram insurgency. During the Derna campaign, the Al-Qaeda affiliated Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna successfully broke the Islamic State in Libya's siege on Derna and began fighting the Islamic State all around Libya. In May 2021, the Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP) launched an invasion of the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, Nigeria, which was serving as the main base of Boko Haram, a rival jihadist rebel group. Following heavy fighting, ISWAP overran the Boko Haram troops, cornering their leader Abubakar Shekau. The two sides entered negotiations about Boko Haram's surrender during which Shekau committed suicide, possibly detonating himself with a suicide vest. Shekau's death was regarded as a major event by outside observers, as he had been one of the main driving forces in the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria and neighboring countries since 2009. == Major conflicts ==

JNIM-ISGS war The JNIM-ISGS war is an ongoing armed conflict between Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State – Sahil Province (ISGS), the Sahelian branches of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State respectively. Since ISGS' formation in October 2016 and the creation of the JNIM coalition in 2017, the two groups had been described as the Sahelien exception or Sahelien anomaly: despite the global war between al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates since the latter's splinter from the former in 2014, both ISGS and JNIM have ignored each other and in rare cases worked together against Malian, Nigerien, Burkinabe, French, and international governments and non-Islamist militias until 2020. The first ideological split between the two groups began in early 2019, but intensified in the summer 2020 due to a variety of factors. === Islamic State–Taliban conflict === The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing insurgency waged by the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-KP) against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The conflict initially began when both operated as rival insurgent groups in Nangarhar; since the formation of the Taliban's state in 2021, IS-KP members have enacted a campaign of terrorism targeting both civilians and assassinating Taliban members using hit-and-run tactics. The group have also caused incidents and attacks across the border in Pakistan.