Al Qaeda announced on Monday that they were cutting ties with the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Although the authenticity of the news announcing the split could not be verified independently, that announcement has been posted on various websites frequently used by Al Qaeda.

There has been tension between the two groups at least since last year when the group was established. It was then that Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri ordered Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who formed ISIL, to cease operations in Syria. Al Qaeda’s al-Zawarhiri named another affiliated group in Syria, the Nusra Front, as its branch in that country. ISIL disregarded the directive however and continued to carry out operations in Syria. Both groups in Syria are considered by the U.S. State Department as terrorist groups.

ISIL has frequently been in disputes with other secular rebel groups and other Islamic insurgents operating in Syria,those skirmishes were often triggered by authority and territory disputes. Many of those groups announced campaigns against ISIL as recently as last month.

In addition to taking over huge swaths of territory in Syria, al-Baghdadi has also made huge advances in his native country of Iraq, where his fighters have taken control of major cities in Iraq’s western Anbar province. The advances in those two countries has made al-Baghdadi a force to be reckoned witth in the jihadi movement.

It is believed by other rebel groups that ISIL is fighting mainly to consolidate power in Syria rather than to unseat Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from his position as president.

Rebel on rebel infighting has been on the increase in the past year, this at a time that Syrian government forces have increased their battlefield activities and have made huge advances.

Rebel groups state that the infighting is expending valuable resources that could be better put to use fighting against the Syrian government forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says that at least 2,300 rebels have been killed in clashes between ISIL and other rebel groups already this year.