The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) has arrested a card-carrying Israeli Arab citizen from Jerusalem for allegedly trying to join the Islamic State (ISIS).
The Shin Bet pointed out that the latest arrest is only the latest that points to Israeli Arabs enlisting in the ISIS with the aim to use their new “skills” to carry out terrorist attacks in Israel.
The Shin Bet also arrested more than a dozen others suspected of planning to join the ISIS.
The eastern Jerusalem suspect was identified as 25-year-old Halil Adal Halil, 25 who had worked as a medical assistant at a psychiatric hospital near Jerusalem.
He was arrested earlier this month after having return from Syria. Before setting out for Greece and then Turkey last August, Halil worked out a gym at Hebrew University and then told relatives he was going away for a vacation and going to Mecca on a Muslim pilgrimage.
He and another suspect, Mohammed Sami al-Aziz Abu Snina, were drawn to the ISIS by its Internet propaganda.
Once in Turkey, Halil and Abu Snina met a contact agent and were smuggled across the border into Syria.