THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

There is no reason why al-Qaeda shouldn't benefit from the US attacks on DAESH. When you have been on the skids for as long as AQ has, you take whatever you get.

Al Qaida is no friend of the Islamic State, whose rapid expansion in Iraq and Syria gave it the lead in the struggle for primacy in the global jihadist movement. But the international attacks on the Islamic State also have lent urgency to al Qaida’s appeals for fighters and cash to confront “the Crusaders,” even as air strikes ravage its primary rival, according to analysts of international jihadist groups.

As a militant Islamist group, al Qaida can’t cheer on Western military intervention in Muslim nations. But analysts predict that the U.S.-led coalition’s presence will result in more cash, recruits and operating space for al Qaida, particularly in Syria. The affiliate there, the Nusra Front, is the vanguard of a rebel movement that’s been steamrolled by the Islamic State, which also is known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL.

While al Qaida loyalists must condemn the strikes in public, analysts say, they also recognize that the operations against the Islamic State offer the chance for a renaissance.

“Their preferred outcome is that it chews up the leadership (of the Islamic State), leaves the foot soldiers and they can get the foot soldiers to come back,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, who researches al Qaida as a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gartenstein-Ross warned in a Foreign Policy article last month that the U.S.-led bombing campaign risks giving al Qaida “a new lease on life.”

Counterterrorism specialists note that al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born doctor who succeeded Osama bin Laden, has issued no public remarks on the U.S.-led campaign to dismantle the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

“He’s been neutral and above the fray,” Gartenstein-Ross said.

The fools signing up and sending money are more focused on the "enemy" than which group they support. And AQ gets to watch two groups they don't like beat each other bloody. How can they lose?