ISIS posts a new forward command group to Egyptian Sinai - at Israel's back door - http://www.debka.com/article/24291/ISIS-posts-a-new-forward-command-group-to-Egyptian-Sinai---at-Israel's-back-door
A group of at least ten ISIS operations and intelligence officers, led by a senior commander, has arrived in Sinai and taken charge of the local Ansar Beit al-Maqdas jihadis, thereby opening up a dangerous new front against Egypt and Israel, in proximity to the Suez Canal, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, debkafile's exclusive counter-terror sources report.
Their identities are not known, but their relocation from Iraq to the Egyptian peninsula was carefully arranged. They came posing as tourists coming for a holiday at the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, arriving on charter flights from Middle East and European locations on fake passports. This enabled them to evade the strict security checks at Cairo international airport.
By assuming command of the local Ansar Beit al-Maqdas terrorist group, which last month pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has moved to add Sinai as a new province to the caliphate he established in parts of Iraq and Syria.
In recent weeks, our counter-terror sources reveal, Islamic State tacticians have provided the Sinai outfit in with a strategic reserve by posting 300 combatants from Iraq to eastern Libya. This group also supplies the Egyptian contingent with arms.
Egypt therefore finds itself encircled by IS forces on its western border from Libya and deeply threatened from the northeast in Sinai; whereas Israel faces the same jihadi menace in the southwest from Sinai and in the north from Syria.
On arrival in Sinai, Islamic State commanders announced their movement's mission had been overhauled and redirected from Egypt alone to the "Egyptian-Zionist alliance."
One of their first tasks will be to counteract recent Egyptian military successes in broadening their penetration of the peninsula's Bedouin tribes and so inflicting heavy losses on Ansar Beit al Maqdas.
Israel finds itself outflanked by the new IS deployment in Sinai. The IDF heavily built up its northern strength to meet any Al Qaeda menace from Syria to the Golan, creating the Bashan Division to fight off jihadist incursions. In the event, the IS's Syrian units have given the Israeli border a wide berth and are focusing on fighting in northern and eastern Syria.
And so, while preparing to tackle Islamist encroachment from the north, Israel finds them cropping up along its southern border, where no comparable military buildup is in place.
Abu Bakr's Sinai move contradicts the claims of senior US commanders that IS is on the run in Iraq after being badly hurt by US and coalition air strikes. (Last week there were no more than 31 air raids over Iraq and 15 in Syria.) All that the light US-led air campaign has achieved so far is to induce the Islamic State's leaders to shift ground tactically from territorial expansion to defense and entrenchment.
Jordan king says war against Islamic State is WWIII - http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Jordan-king-says-war-against-Islamic-State-is-WWIII-383903
Jordan's King Abdullah II described the fight against Islamic State as akin to a third world war last week.
"We have to stand up and say, 'This is the line that is drawn in the sand,'" the king said in an interview that was broadcast on CBS's This Morning on Friday.
"It's clearly a fight between good and evil."
"This is a Muslim problem. We need to take ownership of this. We need to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong," Abdullah told CBS News' Charlie Rose.
"I hope the short term part of it is going to be the military, the medium term is the security aspect of it. But the long term is going to be the ideological one," the king said of defeating Islamic State.
The king also linked the Israeli- Palestinian conflict to extremists' rise in the region, asserting, "You know, whether it's true or not, that argument is still being used by the extremists.
And countries around the world realize that they have to solve the problem for their benefit."
In a longer interview with Rose broadcast on Wednesday, Abdullah mentioned that an Islamic State recruit is offered about $1000 a month, which is similar to a colonel's pay in the Jordanian army.
King Abdullah met with US President Barack Obama in Washington on Friday, and the two leaders discussed ways in which to overcome the Islamic State threat.
Obama and Abdullah made a show of solidarity against Islamic State, holding Oval Office talks that covered the gamut from Iran's nuclear program to tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.
The United States and its allies are making slow but steady progress in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Obama said, pledging more aid to Jordan to grapple with Syrian refugees.
"We recognize that it's a longterm and extremely complex challenge, but it's one that we feel optimistic we'll be able to succeed at," Obama said of the Islamic State battle, with Abdullah seated at his side.
Beyond the military challenge, they discussed some of Abdullah's ideas about organizing within Islam a way to allow peaceful Muslims to over time "isolate and ultimately eradicate this strain" of the religion that has swept the region, Obama said.
Abdullah has absorbed into his country some 1.5 million refugees from Syria's civil war.
To continue to deal with the challenge, Obama pledged $1 billion in aid and a new loan guarantee to help Jordan.
The White House talks also covered international efforts to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program, which Tehran denies is aimed at developing an atomic weapon. A deal eluded negotiators late last month, but the effort continues.
Obama said it was unclear whether Tehran would seize its chance for a deal in nuclear talks with Western powers.
"I briefed His Majesty about our negotiations with Iran, and indicated to him that we would prefer no deal to a bad deal, but that we continue to hold out the possibility that we can eliminate the risk of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon," Obama told reporters.
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