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  • Recently, a terrorist organization in Egypt called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or ABM, reportedly

  • swore allegiance to ISIS in a recorded

  • message released on Twitter. This was the same group that previously refuted any ISIS

  • connection - also on Twitter. So, what happened? Are terrorist groups really joining

  • ISIS?

  • Well, last June, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, called on all Muslims to join

  • ISIS in their jihad against the West. At the

  • time, there WAS some concern that other extremist terrorist groups would heed the call

  • - but few have actually done so.

  • Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which is considered one of the more

  • serious and deadly terrorist groups around, announced their support for ISIS, saying

  • theyre insolidarity with our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the crusade.” But

  • they

  • didn’t offer any sort of financial support or allegiance to ISIS. They basically just

  • said

  • good job.”

  • The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan also publicly stated support for ISIS - but it, too,

  • was nothing more than a glorifiedatta-boy.”

  • Ansar al-Shariah, the same group blamed for the 2012

  • attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, also showed their support for ISIS. One of their

  • factions in Libya paraded down the streets waving ISIS flags. A different faction based

  • in Tunisia may have actually visited ISIS in Syria and offered allegiance, but even

  • this

  • group hasn’t officially joined forces with ISIS. There hasn’t even been so much as

  • a

  • Twitter announcement.

  • So none of the major players have joined ISIS, but there are a few smaller terrorist

  • groups that are actively supporting them in some pretty terrible ways.

  • The Algerian terrorist group, Jund al-Khilafah, captured

  • and beheaded a French mountaineer in retaliation to the French government’s airstrikes

  • on ISIS. The Indian terrorist group, Ansar al-Tawhid, has

  • reportedly ordered their members to kill citizens of any nation currently fighting ISIS,

  • although nothing has come of it yet. And a terrorist group in the Philippines called

  • Abu

  • Sayyaf, kidnapped two German tourists in the name of ISIS, but

  • they may not actually be ISIS-affiliated. More on that later.

  • So, where do we stand now? Well, all of these terrorist groups have their own

  • agendas and targets. Whether or not theyre part of ISIS doesn’t change who their

  • targets are or what their goals are. It doesn’t even change the urgency with which they

  • commit terrorist acts. Including ISIS in the conversation or claiming allegiance with

  • ISIS just gets them a little bit more press and possibly a bit more leverage. According

  • to some experts, Abu Sayyaf, the Filipino group we mentioned

  • earlier, may have stated allegiance to ISIS because people are willing to pay more for

  • hostages held by ISIS than they are for hostages held by an obscure Filipino terrorist

  • group.

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Recently, a terrorist organization in Egypt called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or ABM, reportedly

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