On Tuesday, al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq announced that it had merged with the Syrian opposition group Jabhat al-Nusra to form the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant."
The announcement came in the form of an audio message from the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that was distributed to key jihadist websites.
The merger was first reported by SITE, a Washington-based group that tracks jihadist material online. The authors were able to confirm the announcement by monitoring the jihadist site, Ansar al Mujahideen, which frequently posts material from al Qaeda, including Tuesday's news of the merger of the Syrian and Iraqi wings of al Qaeda. Complicating matters, on Wednesday al Nusra claimed it wasn't merging with al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq, but instead was pledging its allegiance to al Qaeda's overall leadership. Read more
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