A Guest Report
ISIS, Al Qaeda And Boko Haram
Who Are The Terrorists
Responsible For Ruining Our World? (1)
by Rebecca Greig
July 17 2015
Do you know your Boko Haram from your Islamic State group, your Nusra
Front from your al-Shabab?
Keeping track of who's who in the world of militant groups can be a
challenge.
So here is the International
Business Times unedited handy guide:
Boko Haram
Let's start with Boko Haram - the terrorist group that's been wreaking
havoc in Africa's most populous country. The Nigerian militants are
responsible for a six-year campaign of targeted bombings,
assassinations and abductions, killing 50 Friday alone. The group's
name can be translated as "Western Education Is Forbidden," and it's
become infamous for kidnapping hundreds of schoolgirls and a vicious
insurgency that's claimed the lives of thousands.
More recently, it's rebranded, swearing allegiance to the Islamic State
group and renaming itself the Islamic State's West Africa Province. In
March, an audio message by an Islamic State group representative
announced that Boko Haram's pledge had been accepted by the militant
group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and went on to congratulate "our
jihadi brothers" in West Africa.
"It's been a courtship that has been a long time coming," J. Peter
Pham, director of the Africa Center of the Atlantic Council, an
international-affairs think tank based in Washington, said in an
interview with International Business Times. "It's as close to a
marriage of equals as we've ever seen."
The alliance grants Boko Haram legitimacy in the world of Islamic
extremism - a world where recruiting, funding and marketing are as
important as in any corporation.
Islamic State/ISIS
Possibly the most infamous, and diabolical, of all Islamist groups, the
Islamic State group started from humble beginnings as an offshoot of al
Qaeda in Iraq more than a decade ago. In 2006, it rebranded as ISIS.
Nine years later, the militant group has seized territory stretching
from northern Syria to central Iraq and its former allies have disowned
it. After months of feuding, al Qaeda formally announced its separation
from the group in February 2014.
A statement by al Qaeda general command declared that the Islamic State
group "is not a branch of the al Qaeda group ... does not have an
organizational relationship with it and [al Qaeda] is not the group
responsible for their actions."
Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda is the granddaddy of the terrorist groups. Founded by Osama
bin Laden in the 1980s and responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
on America, the group's goal has always been to establish an
independent Islamic state across the Middle East and reject any
political or social activity associated with Western society. Since the
Islamic State group has taken center-stage, al Qaeda has concentrated
more on its affiliates in the region.
Nusra Front/AQAP/AQIM/Al-Shabab
It's difficult to keep tabs on the many acronyms of different militant
groups. The groups above [Nusra Front/AQAP/AQIM/Al-Shabab] are listed
together because they've all sworn allegiance to al Qaeda.
Nusra
Front: Also called al-Nusra. The rebel group first formed to
fight against Syrian President Bashar Assad, and it's still battling in
that country's civil war.
AQAP: Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula. The group, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, claimed
responsibility for the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine
headquarters in Paris last January, and it's since been keeping busy in
Yemen's continuing conflict.
AQIM: Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb. Operating in the Sahara and Sahel region of Africa, the group
traces its origins to the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s, receiving
most of its funding from drug smuggling and human trafficking.
Al-Shabab: Al Qaeda's Somali
brothers, operating a brutal insurgency against the country's
internationally recognized government in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.
The group's members are known to target Christians and were responsible
for Kenya's mall attack in 2013.
Taken together, these groups have succeeded in terrorizing civilian
populations around the world. To know them is not to condone them - but
understanding how they work is essential to learning how to end them.
The M+G+R
Foundation comments
It should be obvious to most readers that nothing or no one, but God,
can stop them because satan is their master puppeteer.
On the other side of the virtual street satan has also been working
hard. Remember when all of those people - now militants - where under
the control of strong hand leaders, which we called dictators? Guess
who freed them from the iron clad control of their varied rulers? We,
the West did it out of a vast geopolitical ignorance, an ignorance
which satan has exploited to the maximum.
Didn't he? Now both sides of the virtual street are fighting each other
to death.
Well, we do have news for all - and we mean ALL:
Only God can bring this to an end and
the damage they inflict in the world could only be tempered if all
those who claim to believe in God - Jews, Christians and Muslims, but
only talk about Him, would get down on their knees and prayed for the
conversion of those savages.
Unfortunately that will not happen ...because
iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold [Matthew 24:12]
which is why Jesus pondered: But yet
the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on
earth? [Luke
18:8] to which we respond: Yes, You will find it but in
precious few. However, we must still thank God for such "precious few"
because ...unless those days had
been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect
those days shall be shortened [Matthew 24:22].
© Article Copyright 2015 by The
International Business Times
NOTES
(1) Original
Source
The M+G+R Foundation
Please Note: If the above dated image does not appear
on this document, it means that you are not viewing the original
document from our servers. Should you have reason to doubt the
authenticity of the document, we recommend that you access our server
again and click on the "Refresh" or "Reload" button of your Browser to
view the original document.