Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Letter as Evidence
During January 2014, there was another indication of the deep rift between the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham, and the Al-Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda, with the publication of a letter written by Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Al-Maqdidi is considered the father of the Salafi-jihadist movement in Jordan and a senior spiritual authority within the movement in general. Today he is imprisoned in a Jordanian jail, accused of involvement in terrorism, aiding terrorism, and supporting the Afghani Taliban.
On January 14, 2013, the Al-Jazeera media network published a letter that al-Maqdisi wrote, in which he explicitly admonished the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham for its irresponsible operations in the arena of jihad in Syria, which he not only considered to be a subversion against Al-Qaeda, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, but also a potentially damaging threat against the mujahideen’s efforts to topple the Syrian regime and establish an Islamic state based on shari’a [Islamic law] on Syrian soil.
