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2017-12-05 Africa North
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Sinai -- A New Arena For The Ongoing ISIS-Al-Qaeda Rivalry
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 [MEMRI.ORG] In recent weeks, the ongoing struggle between the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) and al-Qaeda for leadership of the global jihad movement found a new theatre ‐ the Sinai peninsula ‐ as al-Qaeda made efforts to reenter the Egyptian arena and challenge the hegemony of ISIS in Sinai, or at least to put on a media show of challenging ISIS's Sinai Province. The struggle was manifested on the ground, in actual fighting between the two organizations, and in online propaganda, in an exchange of invective and threats. The struggle in Sinai mirrors the struggle between ISIS and al-Qaeda in other areas, such as Syria, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere.
Jund al-Islam (JI), al-Qaeda's affiliate in Sinai, grabbed credit for an October 11, 2017 attack on ISIS fighters that killed a number of them, and boasted that it has the power to "uproot" ISIS. If the attack was indeed perpetrated by JI, it constitutes a precedent, since to date ISIS has not faced a challenge from within the jihadi movement. However,
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some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
it should be noted that JI's threats seem like bluster, given that it has yet to conduct any significant military activity ‐ in contrast to ISIS in Sinai, which has proven military capabilities. Moreover, the militia of the Bedouin Tarabin tribe, which operates in cooperation with the Egyptian security forces, grabbed credit for an attack on ISIS fighters on the same date and in the same location,[1] while JI has not presented any filmed evidence that it carried out the attack.
 Al-Qaeda circles even disseminated an audio recording of a speaker identified as a holy man in Sinai protesting against injustices that he claimed were perpetrated by ISIS against local residents. ISIS operatives and their supporters online rejected the accusations and threatened to respond fiercely to any attacks on the organization.
It is notable that al-Qaeda operatives appeal to the Sinai residents to turn against ISIS, depicting ISIS operatives as criminals; al-Qaeda media releases aimed at the residents address them respectfully and underline that the organization considers them to be proper Moslems, whereas ISIS may consider them to be apostates, for various reasons.
The horrific November 24, 2017 attack on a Sufi mosque in the village of al-Rawda in north Sinai, in which more than 300 were killed, including many women and kiddies, emphasized the volatility of the situation in the Sinai Peninsula. Although ISIS has not claimed the attack, and likely will not, the attack gave ISIS's Salafi opponents further opportunity to condemn the organization and to turn the Sinai residents away from it. Thus, JI was quick to condemn the attack in the harshest terms, in order to underline how it differs from ISIS.
Jund al-Islam Attacks, Threatens ISIS
On November 11, 2017, JI announced that it had ambushed several ISIS fighters and killed some of them, and had also destroyed a military vehicle and seized military gear. The message described ISIS as "Khawarij"[2] and called on its members to retract their oath of allegiance to ISIS leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
 ...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart...
.[3]
The al-Qaeda-affiliated JI is one of the Salafi-jihadi groups that have been active in Sinai since the beginning of the decade. It carried out several attacks against the Egyptian regime in 2013, after the ouster of president Morsi. Initially it operated as part of the Salafi-jihadi umbrella organization Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen, and later joined Ansar Beit al-Maqdis; when the latter pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi and joined ISIS, JI split off from it, remaining loyal to al-Qaeda. Egyptian experts contend that its reemergence as an active organization is part of al-Qaeda's efforts to reenter the Egyptian arena. They say that it is no coincidence that JI is again active at the same time that the new group Ansar al-Islam grabbed credit for the October 20, 2017 ambush on Egyptian security forces near al-Wahat al-Bahariya southwest of Cairo.[4]
The three-minute audio message in which JI took responsibility for the attack on ISIS states: "At a time when the tyrants [the Egyptian security forces] are expelling the residents of Rafah from their homes, Egyptian military checkpoints are scattered throughout Sinai, and the Jews bombard our people in Sinai with impunity, al-Baghdadi's gang [ISIS] is spying on the believers among the general Moslem public and the mujahideen. The ceaseless attacks by al-Baghdadi's Khawarij ‐ [known as] the 'Sinai Province' ‐ against the Moslems, and their siege on Gazoo, have been proven beyond any doubt. [During this time], we have spotted an [ISIS] unit armed with light and medium weapons infiltrating the area guarded by your brothers from Jund al-Islam, with the aim of killing them treacherously.
"Accordingly, the Jund al-Islam security apparatus decided on a security operation to repel the Khawarij [ISIS fighters], after their evil expansion and oppression reached the level of proclaiming takfir against the members [of Jund al-Islam] and calling them 'sahawat'..."[5]
The message goes on to describe the action carried out on the night of October 11, when a JI unit set an ambush in order to capture ISIS fighters "so as to interrogate them about their crimes [against Jund al-Islam]." A firefight broke out, during which JI killed several ISIS fighters, destroyed their vehicle, and seize military equipment.
The message includes a demand for ISIS fighters "Abu Osama," "Abu Saleh," "Abu Sakher," and "Fahed" to surrender to JI ‐ naming them in order to show the extent of JI's familiarity with the ISIS forces ‐ and adds: "We call upon the devious operatives of the [ISIS] organization to repent before Allah and not to fight under a banner that has sowed division among the Moslems and has, with no religious justification, declared their blood and the blood [of their women] licit. In conclusion, we are capable of uprooting this organization from Sinai if it does not restrain itself, stop its deception and deviance, and subject itself to Allah's divine law instead of al-Baghdadi's law. 'And Allah hath full power and control over His affairs; but most among mankind know it not' [Koran 12:21]." 
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Posted by Fred 2017-12-05 00:00||
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