Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch on Friday denounced the Islamic State group for declaring a caliphate on territory it seized in Syria and Iraq and for aggressively seeking to expand its area of influence.
The Al Qaeda Yemeni offshoot’s purported spiritual guide, Sheikh Harith al-Nadhari, said such expansionist intentions are “driving a wedge” among jihadi groups. He was referring to Islamic State’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s recent call for followers to “explode volcanos of jihad everywhere.”
Al-Nadhari said the IS “forced the nation, all the nation, to pledge allegiance” in absence of “consultation” with other Jihadi leaders. His message was posted on one of Yemeni Al Qaeda’s official Twitter pages.
“They revoked the legitimacy of all the Islamic groups across the Islamic world …. and drove a wedge among Mujahedeen ranks by collecting allegiances from within the Jihadi groups,” he said. “They announced the expansion of their caliphate in a number of countries in which they have no mandate.”
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