SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The business news during the first quarter of 2014 has already been filled with executives moving to competing firms, mergers, acquisitions and notable divestitures, such as Google selling off Motorola. Following suit, the world’s premier terrorist organization, al Qaeda, announced that it would be severing ties with its best-known affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is fighting a ferocious guerrilla war in both of those nations. Al Qaeda, the corporate parent, issued a blunt statement on Monday announcing the divestiture of the Islamic State from all Middle Eastern terror operations. Representatives for al Qaeda’s Pakistan-based headquarters called the move a strategic and necessary business decision similar to Google’s sale of Motorola. "Difficult as it is to sever a business partnership, we believe this move will free our engineers and operations specialists to focus on our core model, which has been suffering since 2011," said a senior al Qaeda press official.