This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
What distinguishes Al-Qaeda from militant groups pursuing purely local or nationalist aims is the scope of its stated doctrine: a Salafi-jihadist ideology directed at the far enemy rather than at any single government, seeking to end American and allied military and political presence across Muslim-majority countries and ultimately restore governance under sharia on a transnational scale. That doctrine, rather than territorial control of any specific state, has organized the network's strategy and its recruitment since its 1988 founding, and it is described here to explain the organization's stated aims, never as instruction toward them.
The organization's Iraqi affiliate, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, evolved through several name changes into what declared itself Islamic State in 2014. The two organizations split at that point and became rivals for leadership of the global jihadist movement, each accusing the other of having departed from correct doctrine and strategy, evidence that global jihad as a project has never been doctrinally or organizationally unified even among the movements most committed to pursuing it.