Shin Bet says it busted Israeli Islamic State cell
Seven-man group allegedly plotted to shoot Druze Israelis; Negev doctor seeking to wage jihad in Syria arrested, too
Mitch Ginsburg is the former Times of Israel military correspondent.
Israeli security forces arrested seven Arab citizens of Israel who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, were actively planning to join the Salafist jihadi group in Syria and were plotting to carry out attacks in Israel, including against the Arab Druze minority, the Shin Bet said Sunday.
The men, all from the Galilee region of Israel, were indicted on Sunday on several counts, including membership in an illegal organization, IS, which was declared illegal in September. The police and Shin Bet conducted the arrests and subsequent interrogations during November and December.
The discovery of the cell and the foiling of a plot to acquire weapons and shoot Druze citizens of Israel, who are considered infidels by the adherents of Salafist Sunni Islam, “points to a dangerous escalation among Israeli Arabs,” the Shin Bet said.
The indictments came one week after 17 French citizens were killed in two attacks in Paris. Days later, Belgian authorities clashed with a cell of jihadist warriors in Verviers. Europe, the United States, and an array of other Western states are increasingly forced to deal with men who have been drawn to the conflict in Syria and have returned, hardened by battle and ideology, to their homelands.
The central member of the Galilee cell was identified as Adnan Ala a-Din, a 40-year-old lawyer from Nazareth, who, the Shin Bet charged, presented himself to the other members of the group as a “senior and official IS officer in Palestine.”
A-Din allegedly preached the gospel of Islamist ideology to the other members of the group, advocated strongly in favor of terror attacks against Israeli civilians, and had the members slaughter sheep in order to steel themselves and “prepare their souls” for the rigors of jihad.
Another alleged central figure was Karim Abu Salah, 22, of Sakhnin, who was arrested in July 2014 at Ben Gurion International Airport on his way to Syria. From prison, the Shin Bet alleged, Abu Salah sought to organize strikes against Israeli military targets and against Druze citizens of Israel.
The group would convene regularly for religious lessons, studying under an unnamed religious leader in the north of Israel, and maintaining contacts with Islamic State fighters in Syria, including several Arab citizens of Israel.
Additionally, on November 20, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police arrested Omar Musa Abu Kush, a doctor who had recently graduated from the Jordan University of Science and Technology’s Faculty of Medicine.
In custody, Abu Kush, an Israeli citizen from the Bedouin village of Arara, admitted to supporting the Islamic State and to having met with IS activists in Jordan. His intention was to travel to Syria to join the ranks of the organization, which has led the battle against President Bashar Assad’s regime and brutalized local populations, killing men who do not adhere to the organization’s interpretation of Islam and forcing women into servitude.
Abu Kush apparently planned to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Othman Abu Alkayan, another Bedouin citizen of Israel, from the nearby village of Hura, who had worked as a resident at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon before joining the Islamic State in Syria, where he was killed in battle in August.
Both men, Abu Kush and Abu Alkayan, were exposed to the Islamic State’s radical ideology on academic campuses in Jordan. Abu Kush has been indicted for contact with a foreign agent, support of a terrorist organization, and promotion for an illegal organization.
