A Message for Sunnis in Beirut Bombing?

Previous bombings of Lebanese Shiite-majority areas, as stated above, were almost entirely carried out by Al-Qaeda subsidiaries, not ISIS. The prestige this earnt Ayman al-Zawahiri’s cadres on the Sunni jihadist street was considerable; Hezbollah being the spearhead of hated Iran’s regional phalanx, believed by many to be almost single-handedly responsible for the survival of the Assad regime. It must have grated ISIS – a bitter rival of Al-Qaeda’s, despite their many similarities – a good deal to have been so decisively outclassed on the Lebanese front. Add to this Al-Nusra’s ever-rising star in Syria, where as a major component of the Gulf- and Turkey-backed Jaish al-Fatah coalition it has taken prime territory off the regime’s hands in recent months, and ISIS’s need to reassert itself before its constituents is all the more pressing. Yesterday’s attacks will have vividly illustrated to the Bin Ladenist underworld that Al-Qaeda – which has failed to score a strike in Lebanon for almost a year now – no longer hold the monopoly in Beirut, and the real mujahideen have arrived to handle business properly.