Al-Qaeda supporters in Yemen pledge allegiance to Islamic State
A group of Islamist fighters in Yemen renounced their loyalty to al Qaeda's leader and pledged allegiance to the head of the Islamic State, according to a Twitter message retrieved by US-based monitoring group SITE. The monitoring group could not immediately verify the statement distributed on Twitter purportedly from supporters of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) based in central Yemen.
AQAP is considered the most powerful branch of the global militant network headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri and has previously rejected the authority of Islamic State which has declared a caliphate, or Islamic theocracy, in swathes of Iraq and Syria.
