[Ynet] Gazook Salafists...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
in both the Strip and Sinai have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the radical Islamist organization.
| If the worst of the worst go to ISIS to be killed, they won't be in Gaza to fight Israel, or in the Sinai to fight Egypt's Mamluk government. |
| Of course, for that to work they have to die... |
The company, which specializes in collecting information from the web, reported there is an increase in support for Salafists in both the Gazoo Strip and in Sinai in recent month, noted both on the ground and on social media.
In June, Salafists held an ISIS support rally in Gazoo, a demonstration that was quickly shut down by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' security forces. At the time, Hamas has denied claims ISIS' influence has made its way into the Gazoo Strip.
In what is undoubtedly interesting timing, it was reported that ISIS operatives were trying to infiltrate Sinai from the Gazoo Strip through the network of smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border - an attempt thwarted by the Egyptian security forces. The Egyptian army denied the reports at the time, while Hamas surprisingly fell in line with the Egyptian denial, an unusual occurrence since the ouster of Hamas-ally president Mohammed Morsi.
Last week, Hamas worked painstakingly hard to shake off the comparison between ISIS' horrific acts of beheadings and executions to their own spree of executions of "collaborators" with Israel.
Expressions of support of ISIS continue unabated in Sinai as well. Radical Salafist organization Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, that is fighting against both Israel and the Egyptian army, released an unusual video from its Eid al-Fitr sermon, given by one of the organization's leaders, Osama Abu al-Masry, to his supports in the middle of the desert, where he expressed the hope Allah would open the road to Baghdad to ISIS.
But it appears that the expressions of support and solidarity have already been translated into active participation in fighting on the battle fields of Syria and Iraq. Several Gazooks from Rafah, Nuseirat and Jabaliya were killed in Homs and Aleppo in Syria and Samarra in Iraq while fighting in ISIS' ranks.
According to recent reports in forums affiliated with ISIS, two Gazooks, from Sinai-based Salafist organizations Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and Ansar al-Dawla al-Islamia, have traveled to Iraq as "representatives" of these group to fight alongside ISIS.
It is important to note that the Islamist organizations in Sinai are closely tied to the armed factions in Gazoo. It is also important to note that during Operation Protective Edge, the armed factions in Gazoo, led by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
, reportedly tried to encourage the Sinai groups to open another front against Israel.
One of these Gazooks is Muhammad Naif al-Qarinawi, an engineer from Nuseirat who fought under the nom de guerre Abi al-Bara al-Ghazi, who was sent to Syria to offer his operational expertise on bombs to ISIS. He was killed on July 26 in a fight against the Syrian army at the Sha'er gas field just outside of Homs.
Ali Samir Abu al-Ainin was sent by the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis to fight alongside ISIS in Iraq. He was killed in the city of Samarra in a battle meant to be ISIS' push for Baghdad.
A video recently posted online could provide additional evidence to the presence of Salafists from the Gazoo Strip in the ISIS ranks. Among other things, the Gazook operatives are seen firing at what are allegedly Syrian army posts as part of ISIS' operations.
In the videos posted online, these bully boyz are said to be a part of the Sheikh Abu Noor al-Maqdisi Brigade. It is possible ISIS has a unit of bully boyz from the Gazoo Strip, similar to the organization's units of other nationalities.
Sheikh Abu Noor al-Maqdisi, after whom the unit was called, was a Salafist-Jihadist sheikh who was assassinated by Hamas in 2009, and is considered the religious authority for Salafists in the Gazoo Strip. In 2009, al-Maqdisi gave a sermon in a in a Rafah mosque, announcing the formation of an Islamic Emirate in Gazoo - which challenged Hamas and angered its leaders. The sheikh was then killed in a shootout that ensued between Hamas men and armed Salafists. Since then, al-Maqdisi became a martyr in the eyes of Salafists in the Strip.
Over the past year, dozens of Gazooks have reportedly gone to Syria to fight against
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Terror of Aleppo ...
, some even bit the dust. However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
it has been reported that most of them preferred joining the ranks of the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria. Following ISIS' success, however, it appears it has now become more attractive to Gazooks.