Jund al-Khilafah

Jund al-Khalifa fi Ard al-Jazayer (جند الخلافة في أرض الجزائر, meaning Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria or Caliphate Soldiers of Algeria) is an Algerian militant group that has ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. On 24 September, 2014 they claimed to have beheaded a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from France, Hervé Gourdel.

History
On 14 September 2014 the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the central region, Khaled Abu Suleiman (nom de guerre of Abdelmalek Gouri), announced in a communique he was breaking allegiance with al-Qaeda and took an oath of allegiance to the caliph of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He was reportedly joined by an AQIM commander of an eastern region of Algeria. He claimed that other members of AQIM had "deviated from the right path" and declared to al-Baghdadi "You have in the Islamic Maghreb men who will obey your orders."