The Islamic State and al-Qaeda branches in Yemen are in a deadly contest for influence.
A bomb-disposal specialist who is affiliated with the Shabwani Elite Forces, an armed group aligned with a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, kneels in 2018 at a seized depot that contains explosive devices made by al-Qaeda militants as another soldier holds an Islamic State flag.
“The rivalry between Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Yemen has developed into a full-blown blood feud,” Elisabeth Kendall, a Yemen expert at Oxford University, who closely monitors the tensions, said late last month. “Each one is trying to defeat the other and to show its strength on the ground, to show that they are stronger than the other,” said Ahmed Fadhil Abu Suraima, a deputy governor of Bayda province, in a December interview.
The Islamic State emerged after political chaos followed Yemen’s populist Arab Spring revolts in 2011. Today, the group numbers around a few hundred fighters and has waged a guerrilla insurgency in the south, dispatching suicide bombers against Yemeni government soldiers and officials. Until a year ago, the two groups had never targeted each other, preferring to focus their efforts on battling the Shiite Houthis, viewing the rebels as apostates. AQAP and ISIS-Y even had bases close to each other, and their foot soldiers often switch allegiances between the groups.“It was basically a disagreement on properties, interests and positions,” Suraima said.
Kendall suggested that the feud is “linked to local territorial and power rivalries” and may have been provoked by the coalition to sow rifts inside Yemen’s Islamist militants.
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