The Similarities Between Al-Qaeda And ISIS

Al-Qaeda and ISIS are both terrorist groups that operate in the Middle East that used to be united as one group but as time progressed, many discrepancies caused the two groups to move away from each other. Al-Qaeda has existed a long time and ISIS is a newer affiliate of the group, but a lot of circumstances on which they differ on caused them to break away. First of all, Al-Qaeda and ISIS differ in the resources they want to obtain which are used to help make revenue which helps them function. Another discrepancy between these two groups is that Al-Qaeda and ISIS have variety in the enemies in which they feel are their main priority to defeat. Finally, Al-Qaeda and ISIS both use different tactics to accomplish the goals they want.

Al-Qaeda formed in the 1980s in Afghanistan for a different reason for why they exist today. The reason Al-Qaeda formed was because at the time, the Soviet military was invading Afghanistan and they wanted to help repel the invaders. The name Al-Qaeda is Arabic for the English words “the base”. The reason Al-Qaeda chose this name is because they are giving a shout out to the original training camp that was used to train the Afghans who were fighting the Soviet invaders. Hence, Al-Qaeda feels that the training camp was the foundation of how they came to be (“Al-Qaeda” 2). ISIS formed in 2003 because the United States decided to invade Iraq and they wanted to fight against the occupation. At the time, a man from Jordan named Abu Musaib al-Zarqawi decided to create the group affiliated with Al-Qaeda and to primarily help resist against the American invasion. In 2004, Osama bin Laden, who has been a long time leader of Al-Qaeda gave the group permission to use the name Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Dyer 6). Al-Qaeda in Iraq changed their name to Islamic State in Iraq in 2006 (8). It wasn’t until 2013 when Islamic State in Iraq combined with a terrorist group in Syria named Jabhat Al-Nusra when they combined to finally form ISIS. Early 2014 was when ISIS officially cut all ties to Al-Qaeda and currently

For instance, when the two groups plan terrorist attacks, ISIS focuses more on the quantity of attacks unlike Al-Qaeda who feels quality is more important. ISIS may not have strong attacks, but they try to perform them as much as possible. This also means that if they do attack, it is usually frequent and usually aren't planned long before they are performed. Al-Qaeda on the other hand concentrates more on the structure of the attack and the dynamics of it. Al-Qaeda usually doesn’t perform terrorist attacks that frequently, but when they do, they are very massive and planned over a long period of time. Also, Al-Qaeda uses terror attacks as their main method of achieving what they want (Schmitt 23). Most of Al-Qaeda’s attacks have taken place in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Al-Qaeda has bombed several US embassies in the late 1990s, including embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania which killed over 200 people and injured 5000 (Johnston, Van Natta Jr., and Miller 45). Also, in October of 2000, Al-Qaeda sunk the American warship USS Cole which killed 17 people (43). The most major attack Al-Qaeda has ever performed was on September 11th, 2001, when four planes were hijacked and two crashed into the twin towers, one into the pentagon, and one into a Pennsylvania field which killed a grand total of over 3000 and injuring over 6000