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Al-Qaeda-Linked Groups Seeking to Take Back Spotlight from Islamic State
(Washington Post) Hugh Naylor - In recent months, al-Qaeda's affiliates have stepped up attacks on Westerners and expanded control over territory. The moves reflect the global threat still posed by al-Qaeda and signal an intensifying rivalry with the Islamic State. Al-Qaeda's North African affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, asserted responsibility for the Nov. 20 attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali, in which militants took 170 hostages, 20 of whom were killed, days after the Islamic State claimed an attack in Paris that killed 130 people. In Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has captured much of Hadramout, Yemen's largest province, and has seized key towns in the southern province of Abyan. AQAP asserted responsibility for the assault in Paris that killed 17 people last January. "The al-Qaeda model is enduring, and I think a lot of people underestimate it," said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Because of the rise of the [Islamic State], al-Qaeda, in turn, could become seen as more palatable to local populations and even governments in comparison."