Comparing Al Qaeda and ISIS; Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud Gives View

According to Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud,Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are the same people who are only re-branding.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud gave the affirmation on Tuesday 17^th November, 2015 in an OSINT statement during a visit in Dubai for a conference on African business opportunities.

Some members of the Al Qaeda linked militant group in Somalia, the Al Shabaab have defected to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria even as their counterparts, the Al Shabaab continue to hunt and kill them.

Of about 50 members who had joined the Islamic State, 20 militants have already been killed by the Al Shabaab.

Both the Al Qaeda and the Islamic statement are driven by closely knitted ideologies that aim to force a course on the globe.

Interestingly however is the enmity that continues to swell between the terrorist groups who fight for superiority as their members confusedly shift alliances. The two are presently driven by a similar course of proving their strength to the west.

Over time, security analysts have compared and contrasted the two terrorist groups in terms of their structure, popularity and funding.

The Islamic State comes out as a militant group that seeks to create an Islamic caliphate as fast as possible and they get their funding through illicit activities such as selling oil on the black market. They take advantage of the social media to spread propaganda. Al Qaeda relies on donors and is backward where new media is concerned.

With the recent IS attacks, the global cyber team has vowed a crackdown on the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, a move that will leave them incapacitated where recruitment, spread of propaganda and source of funds is the case.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s view stands out considering that the present day Islamic State was initially Al Qaeda in Iraq. The same terrorist group that is re-branding but with the same fast spreading ideology is equally meeting a re-branding global war on terror as the world launches cyber-attacks to keep the fight up-to-date.