All Policy Analysis by Aaron Y. Zelin

The group produces much more than execution videos, and examining its propaganda on topics such as military affairs, governance, preaching, and moral policing is key to understanding why individuals spread its message or join its ranks.

Although ISL lost in Darnah, it has emerged even stronger in Sirte by building on existing jihadist networks in the area and ramping up its state-building activities.

The government can move past the recent terrorist attacks and other struggles, but not if it falls back on arbitrary arrests, opaque investigations, or other tactics that failed during the Ben Ali era.

A relationship that dates back decades deserves closer attention, and could well lead to repeat Islamic State attacks on Tunisian soil.

By attacking Shiite targets in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and potentially drawing Iran into the fray, the group is playing a complicated game aimed at delegitimizing the royal family and destabilizing the kingdom.

If al-Qaeda and IS operatives in Tunisia decide to challenge each other for local jihadist supremacy, the result could be more high-profile attacks that threaten the country's summer tourist industry.

While airstrikes in Yemen are changing the nature of AQAP's battlespace, they are not yet fundamentally altering the strategic calculus behind a campaign that took shape well before the Saudi-led intervention.

A conversation about the current status of ISIS and al-Qaeda, including their differing strategic approaches, shifting territorial reach, and Arabic- and Twitter-focused propaganda efforts.

The wider network appears to have moved on somewhat from Zawahiri and the central leadership, hoping to carry the banner against ISIS while continuing the fight against its local and global enemies.

Over the past two years, global attention has shifted to Syria and Iraq with the rise of Jabhat al-Nusra and the return of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). However, nearly one thousand miles to the west, Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) has continued its work of facilitating

Although the regime does not publicly boast about its crimes, it is just as vicious as ISIS.

The small but growing number of Kiwis participating in the Syrian jihad holds several lessons for the New Zealand government and other jurisdictions dealing with the problem of homegrown extremists and sympathizers.