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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Ex-military chief says Israel ‘was asked’ to attack Islamic State in 2015

2023-06-12

[IsraelTkmes] Eisenkot says jihadist group suffered hundreds of losses as a result of IDF strikes, in apparent reference to campaign in Egypt’s Sinai Desert

Former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot on Sunday revealed that the Israel Defense Forces was asked by a third party to carry out operational attacks against the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
jihadist group in 2015.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Institute for National Security Studies, Eisenkot — a current MK with the National Unity party — said that "Islamic State knows best how much the IDF operated in the Middle East: They paid a price of hundreds of killed and injured."

Eisenkot said that "during 2015, there was an event in a certain place where we were asked to carry out an attack." The IDF carried out "a relatively broad attack and harmed a great number of ISIS fighters," he said.

The former IDF chief did not elaborate on who made such a request and where the activity took place, although he said the IDF operated against the terror group "in many more than one country." He added that some of the IDF’s activity "went under the radar" at the time.

"There are not many countries in the world who know how to locate targets the size of a podium and get a missile on a target within a 1,000-kilometer radius around Israel," Eisenkot said. "Our enemies saw it, the Russians saw it, the Americans saw it."

"[Many parts of the] army were involved in this campaign: Military Intelligence, Air Force, special units, foreign relations," he added.

In 2018, it was reported that Israeli drones, fighter jets, and helicopter gunships carried out more than 100 ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
s against Islamic State-affiliated bully boyz over a two-year period in Egypt’s Sinai Desert, close to Israel’s border.

That’d be Wilayat Sina — the Islamic State province in Northern Sinai. Back when they were still affiliated with Al Qaeda, they called themselves Ansar Bayt al Maqdis/Al Qaeda in the Sinai. There were lots of other little jihadi groups holed up in the caves in those parts, including Muslim Brotherhooders on the lam from the authorities, but the names sprang up, mutated, and disappeared like mushrooms after a rainshower, so I gave up trying to keep track of them.

While security coordination between Jerusalem and Cairo is known to be close, the ties are unpopular in Egypt, despite nearly decades of official peace.

Given that even Al Ahram, which parrots the government line in all things, presents Israel as the evil oppressor of innocent Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, and downplays cooperation between the two countries, it’s no surprise that the populace never evolved past simplistic Jew-hate.

In order to keep the cooperation under wraps, the Israeli aircraft were often unmarked and sometimes used indirect routes in a bid to cover up the origin of the strikes, The New York Times

...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
reported at the time.

In May 2022, Islamic State accused Israel of helping Egypt in assassinating a local jihadist group leader in northern Sinai.

Israeli and Egyptian officials have refused to confirm or comment on the reports.

Posted by:trailing wife

#3 Biden admin removing most surveillance balloons at southern border due to cost: sources

Posted by: Skidmark 2023-06-12 08:38

#2 Used successfully in a base defense, persistent surveillance mode in Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

Posted by: Besoeker 2023-06-12 07:48

#1 The first successful use of aerostats was introduced by the Israelis from posts facing that part of eastern Sinai reoccupied by Egypt. That border, though long and complex geologically, has not been the infiltration route into Israel's Negev that some predicted in the nineteen eighties. Given the Israeli success, the aerostat was then deployed out of Fort Huachuca, AZ, to monitor our border with Mexico.

Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2023-06-12 07:42

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