TEL AVIV – A ring of Islamic State (IS) supporters were arrested in the Israeli Arab town of Jaljulia, the Shin Bet security forces reported on Wednesday.
Their plans to join IS were uncovered when one of them, 23-year-old Nadaal Salah, crossed the border into Syria by paragliding on October 24. Salah and his two brothers were known to Israeli authorities as IS supporters and one of them spent six months in Syria fighting for IS before being arrested and spending a year in an Israeli jail in 2014.
Together with other accomplices, the brothers held religious lessons in Jaljuliya and planned ways to join IS, including flying into Turkey and from there crossing the border into Syria to join terror cells in the Islamic State.
The Shin Bet noted that: “This phenomenon of crossing into Syria and joining forces with IS presents a significant risk to state security and [we are] investing resources into preventing more civilians from going into Syria. At the same time we are concentrating on locating and eliminating pro-IS cells operating among Israeli Arabs.”