Ryan Evans, reviewing Fawaz Gerges' new book on al-Qaeda, makes the case that Islamist groups are closer to al-Qaeda than most think:
Gerges falls into the trap of many of his fellow al-Qaeda scholars – he imagines a firewall between violent transnational Islamism and the broader Islamist movement. Throughout the book he characterizes al-Qaeda as something apart from the Islamist movement and shies away from including them in the same category, no matter what the category might be. Yet, both historically and presently, there remains traffic (what social scientists call cross-cutting ties) between the two. There is no doubt that al-Qaeda seeks to realize its vision through drastically different means than other adherents of political Islam newly empowered in the wake of the Arab Spring – most notably, the Muslim Brotherhood – but the end goal is shared: an Islamic state governed by Shari’ah.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross examines al-Qaeda's post financial crisis strategy.
The Dish 