Fledgeling Gaza ISIS Groups Operate Under Watchful Eye of Hamas
A Palestinian journalist was reportedly kidnapped and tortured for eight hours in Gaza this week by a group claiming to be part of Islamic State (ISIS), amid signs that the group are gaining support in the enclave and being tolerated, up to a point, by Hamas.
The journalist, Mohammed Omer was allegedly taken by the men and held between 2pm and 10pm, before they dumped him outside Shifa hospital in central Gaza. Omer has since informed police that the men who held him said they were from ISIS.
The reasons behind taking Omer hostage remain unclear - the journalist has written extensively about the Israel-Palestine conflict in the past, but has not reported widely on either ISIS or Hamas so the motivation remains a mystery. However, increased activity calls into question to what extent the terrorist group are operating in the region, and how Hamas will respond to their presence.
While Islamic extremists have been operating in the region for almost 10 years, including Jaysh al-Islam (The Army of Islam) and Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Supporters of Allah..) Hamas, itself an Islamist group, has been largely able to control and contain these groups, despite there being a few violent clashes in the past. However, with the rise of ISIS and the rapid spread of their propaganda and ideology online, Hamas may now face new, larger-scale opposition.
The scepticism about the terrorist group’s powers in the region may be the reason Hamas have, so far, been fairly passive in their actions towards then. On 19th January they even allowed Salafist militants and supporters, many of whom carried ISIS flags, to protest outside the French Cultural Centre after the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed following the Islamist attack on its offices in Paris.
“They allowed them to do that because those French cartoons were offensive to all Muslims,” Mkheimar Abu Saada, a political scientist at French Cultural Centre , explains that if Hamas are extremely suspicious and watchful of the group’s activities. “Whether Hamas will take a stand against ISIS remains to be seen but I highly doubt they will tolerate them [in Gaza]. Hamas feel that they control Gaza and they will not want to lose that control.”
http://www.newsweek.com/fledgeling-gaza-isis-groups-operate-under-watchful-eye-hamas-304685
= new reply since forum marked as read
This could get worse.
