Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — The leading Islamist insurgency network in the Levant has broken from Al Qaida.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with an operational presence in at least three Levant countries, said Al Qaida no longer represented Sunni interests.

“Al Qaida today is no longer a base of holy war,” ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed Al Adnani said. “The leaders of Al Qaida have deviated from the correct path.”

In a statement on April 18, ISIL appeared to break the last ties with Al Qaida. In 2013, ISIL defied orders by Al Qaida leader Ayman Zawahiri to stop attacking rival Islamist militias in Syria, particularly the Nusra Front for the Defense of the Levant.

ISIL has accused Zawahiri of plotting against the movement, said to be the most powerful Sunni insurgency force in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Al Adnani did not elaborate.

“Its [Al Qaida] leadership has become a hammer to break the project of the Islamic State,” Al Adnani said “They have divided the ranks of the holy warriors in every place.”

About 4,000 fighters have been killed in the war between ISIL and Nusra, which began in January 2014. Islamist sources said ISIL was forced to withdraw from several areas of northern Syria, used as a corridor to send fighters and weapons to neighboring Iraq. The withdrawal included the oil-rich region of the Dir Al Zour province.

For his part, Zawahiri suggested that ISIL was linked to the Assad
regime. In a recent interview, released by the SITE monitoring group on
April 19, Zawahiri said the regime penetrated Al Qaida-aligned militias in
Syria.

“If I command you to fight your holy warrior brothers, do not obey me,”
Zawahiri said. “If I command you to blow yourself up among your holy warrior
brothers, do not obey me.”

  Abu Mohammed Al Adnani, Ayman Zawahiri, Major branch splits with Al Qaida, Nusra Front, saying Zawahiri ‘deviated from the correct path’