New Orleans attack suspect named, accused of killing at least 10, injuring dozens

[Celerity]

15. Yes, here is a good article on that

https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/MES-Publications/MES-Insights/Excommunicating-Hamas/



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A (Long) History of Violence: Hamas and Gaza’s Transnational Militants

In January 2018, Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate branch, which styles itself as “Islamic State–Sinai Province” (IS-Sinai), released a grisly propaganda video showing a group of its members executing a kneeling man who it had accused of smuggling weapons from Egypt into Gaza to the Palestinian nationalist Islamist Hamas movement. The executioners were led by 25-year-old Gazan Hamza al-Zamli, who, with two of his brothers, left Gaza around 2015 to join IS-Sinai using underground tunnels.5 Al-Zamli alleged that Hamas was an “apostate” organization whose members have left the fold of Islam. His argument centered on Hamas’ acceptance of the global nation-state system and endorsement of Palestinian nationalism rather than supporting Islamic State’s brand of globally minded militancy.6 He urged Islamic State supporters in the West Bank and Gaza to use whatever means necessary to target Hamas courts, offices, and security forces, condemning the Hamas government in Gaza for its crackdown on Islamic State supporters there, launched in part to suppress armed challengers to Hamas’ own authority while also attempting to improve souring ties with Egypt over the porous Sinai-Gaza border.7 IS-Sinai, drawing from Islamic State’s political theology, also called for attacks on Palestinian Christian “unbelievers” and Shi’ite Muslims in Gaza. The actual execution was carried out by a former fighter in Hamas’ military wing, the Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam (Qassam Brigades) fighter, Muhammad al-Dajani, who defected to IS-Sinai. Hamas officials’ responses to the IS-Sinai video ranged from alleging that it was a “Zionist” production to claiming that IS-Sinai was trying to prevent Hamas from obtaining weapons so it would be unable to “resist the Israeli occupation.”8

The January 2018 execution was part of a much longer history of animus between Hamas and Gazan militants with affinities to al-Qaeda and Islamic State and its precursors.9 Hamas security forces and the Qassam Brigades have long sought to suppress the independent globally focused militant groups attracted to both al-Qaeda and Islamic State. In August 2009, the Gaza-based militant group Jund Ansar Allah declared the formation of an “Islamic Emirate in the Environs of Jerusalem.” This group was led by Gazan Salafi preacher Abd al-Latif Musa, known as “Abu Nur al-Maqdisi,” head of the Ibn Taymiyya Mosque in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, and military commander Khalid Banat, who claimed to have experience as a foreign fighter.10 This declaration, coupled with Jund Ansar Allah’s stockpiling of weapons, led to hours-long clashes between it and Hamas police and Qassam Brigades forces, during which 26 people were killed, including Musa and Banat along with 14 other Jund Ansar Allah members.11 Jund Ansar Allah’s provocative declaration of an “Islamic emirate” in Gaza included a call for all Palestinian armed groups to join it and led to a massive show of force by the Hamas government, which deployed its police, other security forces, and the Qassam Brigades.12

Globalist Militants Condemn Hamas

Hamas’ suppression of Jund Ansar Allah and other Gazan armed groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda Central and transnational jihadism led to its being widely condemned by al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates, including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Somalia’s al-Shabaab, and what was then the Islamic State of Iraq, which, between 2013 and 2014, changed its name first to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and then to just Islamic State. These groups all issued eulogies for Musa and the other Jund Ansar Allah members killed in Rafah. Hamas had previously been vociferously condemned by al-Qaeda founding leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri for participating in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections.13 By participating in the democratic electoral process, Hamas was deemed to be guilty of endorsing the “religion” of democracy over Islam because, in theory, in a democratic system the majority can elect to contravene “God’s rule and his law.”14

In 2014, IS-Sinai was formed by members of relatively small Gaza- and Sinai-based armed Islamist groups, chief among them Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, following calls by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for all armed Sunni Islamist groups to join his self-proclaimed “caliphate.” In June 2015, Islamic State’s media department released a video featuring Syria-based Palestinian militants lambasting Hamas for not sufficiently ruling by “God’s (Islamic) law” and vowing to destroy not only Israel but also Fatah, Hamas, and “all of the [Palestinian] secularists.”15 In the aftermath of the 7 October attack, Islamic State has remained hostile to Hamas, despite the fanfare with which the attack and ongoing conflict have been met by al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates.16 This hostility continues the contested history of the position of the Palestinian nationalist cause and the political symbol of Palestine within Sunni global jihadi circles, the tension stemming from Palestinian nationalism’s, even in its Islamist forms, primarily local character.17

Islamic State’s Indictment of Hamas................................

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