What is al-Qaeda and what is its purpose?

Answer 1

Al-Qaeda is an international post-national Sunni Islamist terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda's mission is to bring about the Fall of the West and the Islamicization (both cultural, religious, and political) of Western Nations. Their organization sought refuge in several Arab and Muslim countries and found space to grow in Afghanistan until the American Invasion in 2001. Since that point, they have grown cells in numerous other countries, but focused their greatest efforts in Franchising. Franchising means that a nondescript Arab militant group will begin to call themselves Al-Qaeda and advocate for Al-Qaeda's goals without actually being connected to Al-Qaeda's central command structure. In return, Al-Qaeda will donate funds to this militant group to pursue its aims. As a result, people who identify as Al-Qaeda may not even be connected to the Al-Qaeda leadership in the same way that the individual owners of McDonald's Restaurants do not necessarily have a connection with McDonald's Executives.

Recently, because of the popularity of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a number of Al-Qaeda franchises have switched allegiance to ISIL.