Jihadi soap opera.

Via Al Jazeera:

Al-Qaeda’s top leader has ruled against the merger of two jihadi groups based in Syria and Iraq, in an attempt to put an end to increased tensions and infighting among members.

Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ruling came in a letter addressed to the leaders of Syrian-based Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), which is the largest jihadi umbrella group in the country.

Al Jazeera exclusively obtained a copy of the letter on Sunday from reliable sources in Syria.

The ruling comes two months after the leader of ISI, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a merger with al-Nusra to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), saying that al-Nusra was “merely an extension and part of the Islamic State of Iraq”.

However, the unilateral move led to defections, infighting and a breakdown in operations as members disagreed over who commanded the battlefield.

In the letter, Zawahiri said Baghdadi was “wrong” to declare the merger without consulting or even alerting al-Qaeda’s leadership. He added that Syria was the “spatial state” for al-Nusra, headed by Abou Mohammad al-Joulani, while Baghdadi’s rule would be limited to Iraq.

Al-Nusra, listed as a terrorist organisation by the US for its affiliation with al-Qaeda, is considered to be one of the most effective rebel groups in Syria.

But after Baghdadi released a video in April declaring the formation of the ISIL, many of al-Nusra’s fighters, especially non-Syrians, left to join the new umbrella group.

“This was the most dangerous development in the history of global jihad,” an al-Nusra source inside Syria told Al Jazeera on Saturday.