Sinai massacre might point to more bloody IS
CAIRO » The massacre of more than 300 worshippers at a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai crossed a new line — even by militants’ brutal standards — and could be a sign the Islamic State group is trying to make up for the loss of its “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria or that an even more ultra- extremist faction is rising in power.
Either way, if the IS affiliate in Sinai does have a new readiness to slaughter Muslims, that threatens to put a further strain on Egypt’s security forces and intimidate anyone cooperating with the government in the fight against militants. But it also could raise a backlash against IS, prompting Sinai tribes to cooperate with the military and take greater action to stop any of their members from joining the group.
The IS-linked militants waging a campaign of violence in the Sinai and other parts of the country the past three years have traditionally targeted security forces, government officials, Christians and Muslim civilians suspected of collaborating with authorities. However, the Nov. 24 attack — the bloodiest ever militant attack in Egypt — hit ordinary Muslims gathered for a Friday sermon, followers of the mystical movement in Islam known as Sufism that militants view as heretical.
“The ceiling of who is an infidel has risen to include worshippers and to view the slaying of Muslims inside mosques as permissible,” said Ahmed Ban, an Egyptian expert on Islamic extremist groups.
Ban suspects that followers of an ultra- extremist IS faction known as “Hazimiyoun” played a role or were behind the mosque attack.
It may also be possible that other IS militants carried it out.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the Sinai attack, and it is impossible to confirm that the faction did have a role. Some experts believe that IS may have felt it needed a “showcase” attack to show it remains deadly even after losing almost all its territory in Syria and Iraq.
Tore Hamming, a researcher at the European University Institute focusing on jihadis and ideological differences within IS, said the mosque butchery was not necessarily connected to the Hazimiyoun faction. No IS fighters “would consider Sufis true Muslims.”
Even before the attack, Egyptian newspapers reported the emergence of the Hazimiyoun faction in Egypt. One quoted a prosecution official saying detained Egyptian IS suspects told their interrogators that they are followers of the Hazimiyoun and consider some IS leaders as infidels.
The faction is named after a radical cleric, Ahmad bin Omar al-Hazimi, who has been imprisoned in his home country of Saudi Arabia since 2015. It considers as infidels — and therefore as legitimate to kill — all Muslims who do not accept the Islamic State group’s interpretation of Islam. Even further, it says those who don’t consider such people as infidels are also infidels deserving of death. Al-Hazimi himself is not known as an IS member.
The Islamic State group is notorious for atrocities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, including against fellow Muslims; the group argues that killings of Muslims are justified when they were fighting IS or cooperating with its enemies or belong to branches of Islam it rejects, like Shiism. In Yemen, four IS suicide bombers struck two mosques filled with worshippers, killing over 130 people in one day in March 2015.
But IS largely argued that Muslims in general, even if they haven’t sworn allegiance to IS, are not necessarily legitimate targets, on grounds of “ignorance” — namely, that they may not have the religious knowledge to accept IS.
The Hazimiyoun faction rejects the “ignorance” excuse.