ISIS ‘caliphate’ announcement rejected by top Islamist rebel groups

from the Israel Project’s The Daily Tip, July 1, 2014

Nine Islamist rebel groups on Monday rejected an announcement made the day before by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) that the Al Qaeda offshoot was reforming a caliphate extending the group’s influence across the region, tersely noting that “[t]he terms of the caliphate have not been realized at present.” The Sunday announcement of the reformation of the pan-Islamic state was met with criticism from the nine groups, which included militias and Islamic scholars, that “legally and logically” the announcement was “null and void.” Iraqi Shiite lawmaker Khalid Assadi brushed off the caliphate declaration as “nothing but a wild imagination of a desperate fanatic gang.” The criticism comes amid statements from ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who yesterday declared himself the caliphate’s head, calling on Muslims worldwide to join the new Islamic state.