Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the presence of operational links between Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Islamic State.

We do not believe that there are operational links between al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). AQAP has been a vocal critic of ISIL’s rise. It recently issued a public statement condemning ISIL’s ‘Caliphate’ in Syria and Iraq, as well as criticising its use of brutal tactics. Although the civil war in Syria has attracted some Yemeni foreign fighters, this is not an indication of operational links between the two groups.