Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
For the past decade, there has been a single name at the top of the list of global terrorist threats: Al Qaeda. Now, the world is watching a new group that calls itself the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and sometimes ISIL.
Both are considered terrorist organizations, according to the U.S. government, but Al Qaeda's leadership actually disavowed the Islamic State back in February.
"There's a theological difference between these two groups and, then going back to the origins, there are also personality clashes and cultural clashes. You can think of the Islamic State as being younger, more cutting edge, whereas Al Qaeda is a generation older and represents the old guard of the movement," says Douglas Ollivant, Senior National Security Fellow with the New America Foundation.