THE JIHAD DIED WITH AL QAEDA:

A report published on the Carnegie Endowment's Syria in Crisis website by Jean-Pierre Filiu, professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po's Paris School of International Affairs and a long-time French diplomat who served in Arab countries, makes the bold argument that al-Qaida is no longer "the core of a global jihadi movement."

"The former Iraqi branch of al-Qaida [ISIL] has now superseded [Osama] bin Laden's network to become the more important driving force behind the global jihad," he said.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over al-Qaida after bin Laden's death in May 2011, has been leading what "typically has been seen as a complex of overlapping 'franchises' that together make up the core of a global jihadi movement."

Follow @brothersjudd