Al-Qaeda and Daesh: The Rise of the Islamic State

Terrorist organizations are often assumed to be homogenous. Not only do groups claim to represent the same population and, therefore, compete for the same sponsorship, but terrorists also follow the same objectives. This homogeneity indicates that these groups similarly value benefits and costs and that payoffs are symmetrical. Although this may apply to past scenarios, e.g., Palestinian, Northern Ireland, and other, mainly secular-driven terrorist incidents, recent developments among jihadi-related groups have proven to be different. Despite their jihadist ideologies and their ultimate desire to establish a caliphate, al-Qaeda and Daesh are far from being similar. Daesh attracted international attention for its involvement in the full-scale civil war in Syria, but it did not simply appear in 2014 to replace al-Qaeda, as the Western media often suggests. This group already had strongholds in Syria, e.g., Raqqa, and precursors that were part of the al-Qaeda network can be traced back more than a decade before Daesh’s emergence and its subsequent global recognition. The organization used means that were not tolerated by al-Qaeda, leading al-Qaeda to cut ties with it. This renunciation indicates that treating al-Qaeda and Daesh as equal does not capture the full scope of these movements’ relationship, even though the groups may be perceived as substitutes for one another.