THE GROWING THREAT: Al Qaeda, al Nusra and other militant groups join forces with Islamic State to conquer the Middle East and BEYOND

While the United States continues its campaign of sustained airstrikes against the Islamic State, a new phase in the growing Middle Eastern war has begun. Spurred on, by of all things, the unification of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Syria.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Last week, militant leaders from both terrorist groups gathered at a farm house in northern Syria and agreed to stop fighting each other and instead work together against their enemies.

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This information was relayed to the West by a Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander.

If said agreement is true, the ongoing civil war in Syria may have just taken a darker turn.

Already, the scattered and weak pro-Western opposition groups have been ravaged by radical Muslim groups and the military of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and a joint IS-al-Qaeda force would be the end of any hopes for a moderate victory in Syria.

A Syrian official with the moderate opposition movement said that the meeting between the two groups occurred on November 2, in the town of Atarab just west of Aleppo. It started around midnight and lasted until four in the morning.

A military commander with the Free Syrian Army, who calls himself Abu Musafer, said that he knew that high ranking members of the group had met during a meeting organized by a third party.

The two groups agreed to halt infighting between the Islamic State and the al Nusra Front-an al-Qaeda affiliate-and that the groups would open up a new front against Kurds in northern Syria.

Reportedly, members of the Khorasan Group-a small and battle-hardened group of al-Qaeda veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan-were in attendance. Representatives from two other Islamic groups were also in attendance, these groups were the Jund al-Aqsa and Ahrar al-Sham.

This alarming news breaks on the heals of reports that militant groups in Libya and Egypt are starting to swear loyalty to the Islamic State, which may cause a new era of terror and destruction in the Middle East.

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