This chapter examines coalition politics within the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). As the GSPC transitioned into al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), debates arose about the wisdom of aligning with al-Qaida. Moreover, as the GSPC/AQIM effected a “Saharan turn,” the organization’s decentralization and the ambitions of particular Saharan field commanders led to serious debates about strategy. Only some of these debates could be definitively resolved, resulting in a high degree of variation within a single organization. At the same time, leading figures in the GSPC/AQIM sought to use religious language and concepts to maintain a semblance of unity in their coalition. AQIM developed a sophisticated legal body, partly in order to maintain cohesion and to attempt to reinforce the central leadership’s power over independent-minded field commanders. The chapter argues that jihadist coalitions can avoid destructive schisms by empowering field commanders and tolerating a high level of dissent from them, but that this strategy has substantial costs in terms of the central leadership’s ability to impose a singular vision on subordinates.