Islamic State Publishes Photo of Palestinian Suicide Bomber From Mosul

The Islamic State has published a picture of a Palestinian jihadi who purportedly blew himself up among Iraqi troops near the city of Mosul.

Disseminated on the organization’s network on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, the picture was attributed to Abu Abdelrahman Almaqdesi, the nom de guerre of an unnamed Palestinian, complete with the caption: “The brother suicide martyr Abu Abdelrahman Almaqdesi, who attacked a concentration of Shi’ite troops and militiamen near Tahrir district.”

According to IS, 20 Iraqi soldiers were killed and six Hummer vehicles were destroyed in the blast.

Since its creation, dozens of Palestinians, mostly from Gaza, joined IS ranks in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier this week, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that the Hamas leadership in Gaza is concerned by the spillover of its members to IS cells in Sinai, Iraq and Syria. Only this week, three top Hamas militants infiltrated into Sinai through an underground tunnel, in addition to another three who had fled a week before after plotting to kill a prominent Shi’ite activist in the predominantly Sunni Gaza Strip.

In response to the Salafi challenge, Hamas set up “re-education committees” in a bid to spread the movement’s ideological and organizational dogma. Hamas also stepped up punitive measures against Salafi activists and clerics.

Among the dozens arrested was Abdullah Alashkar, a Salafi cleric and founder of the Shura Council of the Mujahideen in the Holy Land, who has been involved in numerous rocket attacks against Israelis and the blowing up of a CIA jeep in Gaza in 2006.