The Islamic State has its own magazine, called Dabiq, a slickly-produced English-language publication. In the latest issue, the terrorist group claims that it has captured an Israeli Arab who was recruited to spy for Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
While the magazine is largely propaganda decreeing Islam “the religion of the sword” and gloating over the burning alive of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh, the centerpiece of the issue is the interview with “captured Mossad spy” Muhammad Said Ismail Musallam, a 19-year-old from Jerusalem. Musallam claims one of his neighbors approached him and invited him to work for Israeli intelligence, an offer Musallam’s family encouraged him to accept because “it was a very good job” with “a lot of money in it,” plus career advancement possibilities. (The Dabiq interviewer is careful to make Mussallam give the full names of these family members, because ISIS likes everyone who displeases it to feel that their lives are constantly in danger.) It is also noted that Mohammed was generally in favor of going hard on apostates and unbelievers.
Mussallam describes his training in East Jerusalem as covering “self-control,” “information extraction,” “how to survive an interrogation,” and weapons training. He said he started out spying on Arabs in Jerusalem, and did such a good job that eventually a big-time Mossad agent assigned him to infiltrate the Islamic State in Syria. Eventually he was caught for “acting in a manner that wasn’t typical of a muhajir [i.e. ISIS fighter]” and refusing to follow orders.
Of course, the “interview” wraps up with the prisoner made to deliver a message to other “spies sent by the kuffar”: “I say to all those who want to spy on the Islamic State, don’t think that you’re so smart and that you can deceive the Islamic State. You won’t succeed at all. In the end, they’ll capture you and implement the hadd on you. [Hadd is punishment mandated in the Koran for crimes against Allah.] Stay away from this path. Stay away from helping the Jews and the murtaddin [apostates]. Follow the right path.” He also called on his father and brother to “repent to Allah.”
The Jerusalem Post said that ISIS’ story about Mussallam “could not be corroborated and verified with other sources,” although conceding that “the flow of volunteers from all over the world to ISIS also opens opportunities for security services to plant their spies.” The Post speculated that the prisoner would most likely be executed by his captors. ISIS has been on a rampage against suspected traitors lately, releasing a beheading video of eight Bedouin men it accused of being spies for Israel and Egypt earlier this week.
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