Mali-based jihadist group and al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar Dine claimed responsibility Saturday for three attacks in the village of Talhandak. The attacks join a series of al-Qaeda efforts in recent months to regain support from the more popular Islamic State.
Ansar Dine operates as a front for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The regional terrorist group stated online Thursday that they had targeted a military barracks "of the agents of France" held by a "local agent of the Crusaders known as Trawa Trawa," according to The Long War Journal. Acting in the name of AQIM, the group went on to take control of the town.
As 2015 draws to a close, al-Qaeda affiliates have attacked with increasing frequency, targeting Westerners, implementing effective propaganda, and exerting influence over conflict-ridden countries, analysts say. Their escalating actions highlight the rivalry they harbor with the Islamic State, The Washington Post reported.
"It's a race of destruction, and it's clear the battlefield for jihadists is expanding dramatically," said Theodore Karasik, a Dubai-based expert on Middle Eastern conflicts.
Al-Qaeda seized large tracts of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate. after ISIS left the jihadist organization over a year ago. Its attacks have become a kind of dialogue between their Islamic State rivals. After ISIS claimed responsibility over the Paris Attacks, al-Qaeda responded with November 20 Mali hotel attack.
The conflict between the jihadist rivals reached a boiling point in Syria over the weekend when air strikes killed Zahran Alloush, leader of the rebel group Jaysh al-Islam, another al-Qaeda affiliate. The U.N.-brokered deal between ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and other rebel groups would have evacuated a zone of heavy conflict and returned fighters to their respective strongholds, according to The International Business Times. The deal, which would have been the first of its kind between the Syrian government and jihadist groups, now hangs in limbo.
