BICOM

ISIS has captured an East Jerusalem resident, claiming he is a Mossad spy.

A new issue of the ISIS English-language magazine Dabiq reveals that ISIS has captured Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam, an ISIS volunteer who they suspected of being a spy. The magazine carries an interview with Musallam, in which he appears to claim to be a spy, recruited by Mossad to infiltrate ISIS and report on Israeli-Arab ISIS members and weapons locations.

There was no way to verify whether the interview was genuine, coerced or even entirely fabricated by ISIS. Previous ISIS hostages have been forced to deliver specific scripted messages.

Musallam’s father spoke to Haaretz and told the paper that his son had asked for money to attend a training course in Israel, but instead used the money to travel to Syria and join ISIS. He reportedly told his father he wanted to come home after a few weeks, and was captured by ISIS while attempting to flee to Turkey.

Musallam’s father told Haaretz “He is not a spy, he went over on his own — they recruited him on the internet. I don’t know what they said to him or how they got into his head, but he is not connected with the Mossad, the Shin Bet security services or anyone else.”

The same issue of Dabiq contains a purported interview with Hayat Boumeddiene, the wife of gunman Amedy Coulibaly who killed five people at a Kosher supermarket in Paris in January. Boumeddiene allegedly fled to ISIS controlled territory ahead of the Paris attacks.