JERUSALEM – Breitbart Jerusalem has obtained exclusive images of what jihadists say was an ISIS training camp in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The camp was in the same general area where a Russian passenger plane crashed last month. Russia announced the aircraft was brought down by a “terror act” and ISIS published what it claims is a picture of the bomb that downed the plane.
ISIS terrorist training camp in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The images were distributed in recent weeks on a closed online forum for Gaza and Sinai-based jihadists and were provided to Breitbart Jerusalem by a Gaza militant who is a member of the forum. The pictures could not be independently authenticated.
The pictures show a sign in Arabic that reads “martyrs camp.”
One image – seen here on the right – contains a sign bearing the name Sheikh Imam Abu Noor al-Maqdisi, also known as Sheikh Abdul Latif Musa. Maqdisi was the leader of a Salafist group in Gaza who proclaimed the formation of the “Islamic Emirate of Gaza” on August 14, 2009. One day later he was killed by Hamas forces.
According to the Gazan militant who provided the photos, the camp was a 10-month training center that closed up shop last July, when the Egyptian Air Force bombed jihadist positions in the Sinai during a massive military campaign.
ISIS terrorist training camp in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
One of the most significant elements of the camp is the Gaza-centric imagery.
According to the Gazan jihadist who provided the photos, scores of Gazan militants received training in the ISIS base camp, which he says was run by the Sinai-based ISIS-affiliate Al-Wilayat group.
Support for ISIS has reportedly been on the rise in Gaza. In May, Hamas engaged in deadly clashes with ISIS supporters who challenged Hamas rule.
In July, the Information Bureau of the Aleppo Province, affiliated with ISIS, released a video entitled “A message to our folks in Jerusalem,” in which ISIS members originally from Gaza declared war on Israel and Hamas.
In the video, ISIS member Abu Azzam Al-Ghazzawim, who is originally from Gaza, delivered a strong-worded warning to what he called the “tyrants of Hamas”:
ISIS training camp in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
“You are nothing in our reckoning. You, Fatah, and all the secularists, we count you as nothing. Allah willing, we shall uproot the state of the Jews. You are nothing but froth that will be gone as we move in. Allah willing, Gaza will be governed by Shariah despite you.”
Abu Qatadah Al-Filistini, an ISIS member who leads a faction in Aleppo, Syria, made an appearance in the video and called on all “monotheists in Gaza to join the convoy of the Muhajidin and to join the State of the Caliphate.”
Abu Qatadah accused Hamas of “sliding gradually into apostasy, a slide that started with the demolition of the Ibn Taymiyah Mosque.”
“It is a movement that does not seek to govern according to Shariah but seeks to appease Iran and America, the heads of apostasy.”
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