AN OLD THREAT LEFT IN THE SHADOWS OF ISIS – AL-QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA
AN OLD THREAT LEFT IN THE SHADOWS OF ISIS – AL-QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

Summary/Abstract: Both proud of frightening pasts that have witnessed successful terrorist attacks, al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia decided in 2009 to join their forces and merge under one name “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP) and under one leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi. This step seems to have foreseen the perfect context that was to be created by the Arabic Awakening and by the strong comeback of ISIS. Although its leader, al-Wuhayshi, was killed in 2015, the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains an important threat to the security of the region although its activity has remained in the shadow of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The bond or rivalry between AQAP and ISIS was observed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks that were claimed by both organizations as two of the perpetrators had been in contact with ISIS and the other one had received training at an AQAP camp. Since then, the two organizations have not claimed any shared attack in the West, but their rivalry might motivate them to support terrorist activity in Europe just to prove their strengths to each other and to the Western powers. The paper addresses a matter relating to terrorism, but it is moving our attention from extremely common elements in the public space like ISIS to less known terrorist organizations, able to generate the future humanitarian crises.

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