Al Qaeda member in Syria claims AQ mostly focuses on military & political targets, not civilians

In the past, AQ has denounced ISIS so I was curious if I could find any information regarding the Paris attacks and what I found is very interesting. A Dutch AQ member fighting in Syria had this to say about the attacks as they were happening.

twitter.com...

Abu Saeed Al-Halabi ‏@Saeed_alHalabi0 Nov 13
However, al-Qaeda focuses mostly on political & military targets instead of civilians. That's why this could be an IS attack. #ParisAttacks

Political targets are civilians but AQ is claiming they no longer indiscriminately target civilians? Are they trying to separate themselves from ISIS?

Political targets are civilians but AQ is claiming they no longer indiscriminately target civilians? Are they trying to separate themselves from ISIS?

Yes and they have been doing so for quite some time.

ISIS is much much worse than Al-Qa'ida, in fact Bin Laden once gave the leader of Al-Qa'ida in Iraq a bit of a bollocking for his indiscriminate attacks that where pitting Muslim against Muslim. I am also pretty sure i read a article not long ago stating that Al-Zawahiri had declared war on ISIS basically saying they were doing it wrong (cannot remember details of the top of my head sorry).

As more of a side note, I remember after the 2011 attack in Norway when everyone was saying it was Al-Qa'ida i had cast doubt on that purely based on the number of children who where killed. You see the thing is that although brutal "Core" Al-Qa'ida has always been very image concious. They do still attack civilians despite the kind of crap they want to spout but even at their hight Al-Qa'ida is very different to ISIS. I personally believe that ISIS is much more dangerous than Al-Qa'ida ever has been.

a reply to: Swills

And we're going to believe them?

They are a terrorist organization and they commit acts of terrorism.

It still doesn't matter who they are targeting because they are terrorists trying to destabilize countries to overthrow governments to create purist Islamic states.

Not cool.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

ISIS is definitely more dangerous than AQ. ISIS has become the wet dream for the military industrial complex because they are so dangerous, well funded, and successful.

Er.. didn't they alledgedly fly 2 planes into skyscrapers in New York killing thousands... or the train bombings... or the embassy?
Are these not innocent civilians. ..

a reply to: markosity1973

Believe them? I guess their actions can be the only true factor as far as believing them is concerned. It's odd that a terrorist group would state they don't focus on attacking civilians though since terrorists, like ISIS, usually boast these actions.

a reply to: Misterlondon

Clearly they did and that's why I find it odd that they now claim they don't focus on civilians. Well, unless they consider all the people in the towers political targets.

originally posted by: Misterlondon
Er.. didn't they alledgedly fly 2 planes into skyscrapers in New York killing thousands... or the train bombings... or the embassy?
Are these not innocent civilians. ..

I am not defending them but they did also fly a plane into the military home of America and one could argue the 2 towers were the economic home of power in America and flight 93 may have struck the capitol building.

So while yes the attacks were horrific one can at least understand why they may have chose those symbolic targets.

But ISIS targeting people sitting about eating in a restraint is senseless

Going back nearly two years now, AQ has been trying to put distance between themselves and ISIS/IL. They've made several statements that they find IS to be "barbaric" and so on.

Zawahiri went after Baghdadi pretty hard a few months ago.

Will AQ actually do anything about it? I doubt it. But it's not the first time AQ has come out against IS.

a reply to: Swills

The Islamic terror groups are now starting a psychological war of disinformation. Your OP is one such example.

Don't fall for it. It's just a ruse to get people confused and arguing over the true nature of Islam while they commit more atrocities.

The first thing a group of "terrible terrists" do upon entering a town is force the people to flee by murdering some of them and blowing up structures. Rubble piles make better fighting positions. The hostages taken are used as shields and the town itself makes it harder to spot the insurgents. Each town in turn is secured this way before fighting begins with the government forces that respond to the emergency by retaking the town, base, road junction, whatever.

The insurgents goal is to wear down the military, making it as difficult as possible for them and destroying their own infrastructure without killing innocent civilians in the process and depleting their own reserves and munitions.

They hide behind hostages, schools, hospitals, monuments, whatever. Then when driven out, they leave behind destroyed and empty places Syrians used to live, sown with land mines and booby traps.

Guerrilla warfare, lacking conventional military strength, used throughout history to overthrow nations a little bit at a time, mostly avoiding direct conflict with the states forces in open warfare.