“The takeover of the Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday illustrated an increasingly disconcerting reality for the United States: From Iraq to Syria and beyond, radical offshoots of al-Qaeda are expanding their ambitions and directly threatening American national security interests. The splinter groups have become a bigger problem than what remains of the old core al-Qaeda, and one that is in many ways harder to address or contain. The loss of Mosul to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), U.S. officials and experts acknowledged, is a powerful demonstration of the extremists’ growing effectiveness and reach.”
Source: From Iraq to Syria, splinter groups now larger worry than al-Qaeda – The Washington Post
