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Leader of Sinai ISIS affiliate visiting Gaza coordinating with Hamas
The leader of the ISIS-affiliated terror group Sinai Province is reportedly in the Gaza Strip for talks with Hamas over deepening cooperation which already exists between them.
Although Hamas officially opposes ISIS, Israeli security agencies have assessed for some time that there is ongoing cooperation between Hamas and Sinai Province, which pledged loyalty to ISIS last year. Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in July, “Hamas is fighting ISIS in the [Gaza] Strip, but on the other side there is cooperation between Hamas elements from Gaza and ISIS in Sinai.”
A Channel Two report says that Sinai Province leader Shadi al-Menei is currently meeting with Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip to discuss the ongoing flow of weapons between the two. Although Egypt has destroyed a large number of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Sinai, Hamas is still receiving a supply of weapons while Hamas has been equipping Sinai Province with weaponry including Cornet anti-tank missiles. These have been responsible for killing a large number of Egyptian soldiers and attacking heavy weaponry including naval vessels.
The Channel Two report says that the Sinai Province-Hamas cooperation is a concern for both Egypt and Israel. Since the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2013, Sinai Province has waged arms against the regime of President al-Sisi, persistently attacking Egyptian military forces in Sinai and inflicting serious casualties.
Although the regime in Cairo has been the primary target for Sinai Province, the group has also made clear that it is committed to attacking Israel. As recently as July, it was responsible for firing three Grad rockets into Israel. In 2013, two rockets were fired by the group on Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city. Meanwhile, al-Menei himself is thought to have been responsible for a complex terror attack in 2011, which saw four groups of terrorists attack an Israeli civilian bus and several army vehicles near the Egyptian border. Six civilians, two IDF personnel and several Egyptian soldiers were killed.