Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s (AQI) spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued a statement today condemning Syria’s Western-backed rebels, saying they have been trying to “steal credit” for military victories that were actually theirs.
Al-Qaeda factions in Syria have been increasingly at odds with the secular-minded factions, contesting control over territory as well as spurning attempts by the pro-West Syrian National Coalition (SNC) to make itself the official rebel “government-in-exile.”
The SNC has been losing support left and right from combatant factions, and has accused AQI and others of “stealing the revolution from them,” though AQI is quite correct in saying that they’re securing what military victories there have been on the ground.
At the same time, AQI is less and less focused on fighting the Assad government, and a lot of the high profile battles lately in Syria have been rebel-on-rebel, or else al-Qaeda fighters trying to take over Kurdish towns.
