Let’s take a look at the impact of Da’esh (ISIS) – one year after it first proclaimed its intention of establishing a worldwide caliphate. The spread of ISIS affiliates is skyrocketing, in fact, and can be found around the planet:
- Europe France, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark
- Middle East Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Gaza, Israel
- Arabian Peninsula Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen
- Africa Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
- North America United States
- Southeast Asia Indonesia, Malaysia
- Australia
In the past week alone, ISIS slaughtered 200 innocents in the Kurdish city of Kobani on the Syrian border with Turkey. The terrorist group lost control of the city in the process but it didn’t matter: the massacre had been carried out as a simple retaliation against the Kurds, with terrorists going from house to house to shoot anyone within.
A week ago Friday, ISIS terrorist Saif Al-Deen Al Rezgui, 24, did the same on a hotel beach in Sousse Tunisia. He slaughtered at least 38 sunbathing foreign tourists, most of them British, and wounded dozens more. The killing ended not only lives, but also Tunisia’s chance of restoring its once-vibrant tourism industry in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution, at least for now.
In Kuwait, an ISIS suicide bomber attacked Muslim worshipers in the Al-Sadiq mosque during Friday prayers in Kuwait City. At least 27 died and 227 others were wounded in the blast, the first major attack to strike Kuwait in decades. Kuwait declared ‘war’ on ISIS following the attack on the Shiite mosque, which the terror group called a “temple of the rejectionists.”
Two different Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia were also attacked by ISIS in recent weeks. And that same day in Grenoble, France, the head of a U.S.-owned gas and chemical factory near Lyon was beheaded. An explosion followed the attack, resulting in two others being injured. French investigators arrested Yassin Salhi, a former employee suspected of membership in ISIS, in connection with the attack. Officials have placed the country back on high alert.
It has taken years for the Arab nations in the region to wake up, but ISIS has finally managed to open their eyes — having begun making friends with those who were once its enemies as well.
In its attack on the regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi this week, ISIS affiliate terror group Waliyat Sinai (Sinai Province) received key operational support from an odd source: Iranian proxy, Hamas.
Gaza-based Hamas — generously funded, equipped and trained by Iran — was spawned by the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which is deeply committed to el-Sisi’s destruction. In Gaza, Hamas and ISIS are still locked in a power struggle; but outside the enclave the two are uniting in their mutual war on common enemies.
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz, noted this week at the Intelligence and Special Units Conference, organized by the IICC Association and Israel Defense, that regarding the relations between Hamas and ISIS in Sinai, “there is cooperation between them in arms smuggling and terrorist attacks. The Egyptians know this, (and) the Saudis. However, in Gaza, ISIS challenges Hamas. But there is a common ground against Jews, in Israel or abroad.”
The European community needs to catch up with this understanding as quickly as possible. They have a lot of ground to cover if they are to defend themselves from what lies ahead. In this, leaders of Muslim nations are already awake.
On Monday, Tunisian Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli said during a joint news conference with his German, French and British counterparts in Sousse that his government might close mosques “that use an anti-democratic language and that use a language of hatred.”