Hiiraan Online
Thursday October 15, 2015
KAMPALA (HOL) – The Nigerian Jihadist group which already joined the Islamic State group fighting in Syria and Iraq has urged the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabab group to follow suit by joining ISIS, echoing previous calls telling the group to join the new Jihadist group.
According to the AP news agency, an unidentified armed fighter with Boko Haram has urged Somalia’s al-Shabab rebels to join them in pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group, and thus abandon al-Qaida on Thursday.The call is part of a wider courting of al-Shabab. Similar messages came nearly two weeks ago from militant extremists in Iraq, Sinai, Syria, and Yemen.
Security analysts said that Al-Shabab may not be ready to join ISIS by dropping Al-Qaeda which unlike ISIS sent fighters and logistics support to the group since it rose to prominence in 2007.
Al-Shabab fighters have detained several foreign fighters it accused of trying to switch sides with ISIS two weeks ago. The unidentified fighters were arrested after the group’s leadership called its followers to stick to their allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
However, the quick rise and prominence of ISIS is a worrying trend for Al-Qaeda as Islamic State’s leadership has started building alliance with Al-Qaeda affiliates, including the Nigeria-based group, Boko Haram which has declared its allegiance to ISIS last year.
The Islamic State group's gains over the past year have been sizeable. For nearly two decades, al-Qaida was unchallenged as the world's most prominent terrorist organization. But IS has stormed forward to rival it — and even surpass it in places, according the British newspaper, Guardian.
Perhaps more importantly, the Islamic State group has a dynamism and fervor that has seemed to fade for al-Qaida. The IS declaration of a "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria inspired a stream of thousands of foreign fighters to join it and earned it pledges of allegiance by individual militants around the region. The group's notorious brutalities — everything from beheadings to enslavement of women from religious minorities — are seen by its supporters as proof of its purity and refusal to compromise on what it considers "God's law.", according to the Military and defence site, The Insider.