Bloomberg
New America:
Brian Fishman: “Since the late ’90s, al-Qaeda has been focused on prioritizing attacks against the U.S.” while the upstart Islamic State and its predecessor groups seek to control territory in the Middle East -- from Iraq into Syria and the Levant and down into Jordan, said Brian Fishman, a fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and the author of studies on al-Qaeda and global jihad.
The Islamic State wants “to eliminate all borders in the Middle East, and that’s where they’re putting their resources,” Fishman said. While al-Qaeda shares that eventual goal, it has targeted its resources on planning attacks on U.S. targets at home and abroad.