ISIS Supporters Threaten Hamas and Take Credit for Launching Rocket at Israel from Gaza
Islamic State Attacks Israel: ISIS Supporters Threaten Hamas, Take Credit For Launching Rocket From Gaza
June 2, 2015International Business Times - Islamic State group supporters in Gaza have given ruling Hamas leaders a 48-hour deadline to stop a crackdown on them. The militants also claimed responsibility for a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza last week. The rocket landed near Gan Yavne in southern Israel, Israeli military officials said.
The threat to Hamas sent to Middle East reporters on Monday did not specify what would happen if the crackdown continued.
Hamas has targeted Islamic State radicals in recent weeks after a series of unclaimed bombings. The crackdown resulted in the arrest of dozens of Salafi-jihadists who are affiliated with the Islamic State group, local media reported.
Hamas also destroyed in May a mosque belonging to a group known as the “Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem.” The Salafi group said Hamas had demolished the mosque “in a manner that even the Jewish and American occupation has not done,” the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported.
“In the light of Hamas’ new crackdown, we renew our loyalty to [ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and call on him to strengthen his influence and to launch a campaign in Palestine,” said a statement from Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem released after the destruction of the mosque.
Meanwhile, Hamas security forces said Tuesday they had killed an Islamic State supporter in his home after a shoot-out in Gaza, Haaretz reported. Hamas spokesman Eyad Al-Bozum said the 27-year-old man died "during an attempt to arrest him," the Associated Press reported.
Islamic State supporters claim Hamas, the Sunni Muslim group that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, is too liberal and has failed to impose religious law.
Why Sunnis and Shiites are fighting, explained in two minutes
It's unclear how many ISIS supporters there are in Gaza, or if they have solid relations with the Islamic State group seizing territory in Syria and Iraq.
The divide between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam is both ancient and still highly consequential today. In Syria, a Sunni-majority country dominated by members of a Shiite sect, fighting that began as anti-government has taken on sectarian overtones. That has spilled over to Iraq, which is Shiite-majority and has a predominantly Shiite government but is increasingly troubled by Sunni rebels. And the region's major powers have long pushed sectarian interests, with Shiite-majority Iran on one side and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia on the other.
In this two-minute video (above), reporter Karen DeYoung and The Washington Post's video team give a very brief history of the Sunni-Shiite divide and what it means for Iraq's escalating violence today. It's important to note that this religious division is one of many factors driving the conflicts in the Middle East. Although theological differences are not in themselves enough to explain the fighting, it's important to understand the very basics to grasp what's happening in the region.
Here, to illustrate the Sunni-Shiite divide, is a map showing the religious groupings in the region.
As you can see, Sunni and Shiite are spread out enough that they have to coexist within their respective countries, typically with one group in a majority and the other a minority. But they're also clustered enough that groups of Sunni and Shiite can develop local power bases that can compete with formal government authority. It's not ideal.
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