I suspect a large part of that change in focus is in effect that they are leaving the area and consolidating their forces elsewhere as sort of a passage of lines by another group of forces with which they have a tenuous understanding. They may not expect the replacements to win but even if they just continue to make things difficult it would still seem to work to AQ's advantage(at least in their perspective)
Kinda like it's becoming more about military battles than ideological ones at least in the forefront.
, and all that jazz.The enemy of my enemy is my friend
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