Think Islamic State has dealt a knock-out blow to al-Qaeda? Think again.

The Islamic State has stolen the spotlight from its forefather, al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda-linked groups have escalated the fight to take it back.

In recent months, the older group’s affiliates have stepped up attacks on Westerners, expanded control over territory in war-torn countries and used propaganda and reprisal killings to weaken their adversary, analysts say.

The moves not only reflect the global threat still posed by al-Qaeda, they also signal an intensifying rivalry with the Islamic State that is fueling conflicts and breeding radicalism from South Asia and Africa to Paris.

That competition has helped further destabilize countries such as Yemen and Syria, where the extremist Sunni organizations have exploited unrest to capture sprawling tracts of land with the goals of indoctrinating local populations with extremist ideologies and possibly staging attacks against the West, analysts say.

“It’s a race of destruction, and it’s clear the battlefield for jihadists is expanding dramatically,” said Theodore Karasik, a Dubai-based expert on Middle Eastern security issues.

After splitting with al-Qaeda more than a year ago, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has gone on to steal hearts and minds of would-be militants.

It declared a caliphate last year after seizing vast territory in Iraq and Syria. It dazzles potential supporters with slick propaganda of its grisly attacks, including mass executions and the group’s alleged downing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt in October. Some al-Qaeda militants have since joined the Islamic State, which is forming affiliates beyond its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

But far from defeated, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been trying to respond to the Islamic State challenge more forcefully in a bid to show off their militant bona fides, said Fawaz A. Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics.

The Nov. 20 attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital of Bamako, in which militants took 170 hostages, 20 of whom were killed, serves as one example, Gerges said. Al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, asserted responsibility for the assault, which in coordination with allied militants targeted a Western symbol days after the Islamic State claimed an attack in Paris that killed 130 people.

The Mali attack triggered a flurry of praise on social media among al-Qaeda supporters.

“What al-Qaeda has been doing is to try to carry out spectacular attacks on its own and show capacity,” Gerges said, describing the group as having “much life in its global veins.”

SOURCE: : MNS NEWS