Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out in support of US President Barack Obama’s call for a united action against Islamic State (IS) but warned the West should be wary of strenghtening Iran in the fight against the IS.
In an address to the American people, outlining his strategy to combat ISIS, Obama has announced a “comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy” which will include a “systematic air campaign” against ISIS positions in Syria. Although Israel is unlikely to play a formal role in this coalition, Reuters reported this week that Israel is supplying crucial satellite imagery and other intelligence to bolster the United States-led effort.
‘’The West must act against the nuclearization of Iran with equal determination,’’ Netanyahu said in an address to the annual conference of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya.
While warning against a “bad deal” on Iran as negotiations between the world powers in the P5+1 and Iran are slated to resume in New York next week, Netanyahu said that radical Sunni terrorism – embodied by groups such as Islamic State, al-Qaida, Hamas and Boko Haram – and radical Shiite terrorism – embodied by Iran and Hezbollah – were “two sides of the same coin.”
“All civilized countries should stand together in the fight against radical terrorism that sweeps across the Middle East, that sweeps across the world,” he said. “And we are playing our part in this continued effort. Some of the things are known, some things are less known.”
All the radical Islamic forces that have come to the surface since the Arab Spring, reflecting ancient hatreds and frustrations, have one common goal, the establishment of Islamic domination, first in the Middle East, and then throughout the world, he said.
Speaking on the 13th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, Netanyahu asked the participants to imagine what would have happened had al-Qaida been armed with nuclear weapons.
“You know they would have used them against New York and against Washington,” he said. “These groups have absolutely no moral or other impediments to their mad desires. Once they have massive power, they will unleash all their violence, all their ideological zeal, all their hatred with weapons of mass death.”
“What would happen if the terror regime in Iran will have nuclear weapons? They control themselves today. They put up a good front, but they have tremendous ambitions. Not for Iran, but for Shiism from Iran. And those ambitions would be unleashed once they have nuclear weapons in their capacity.”
A week before the restart of nuclear negotiations between the world powers and Tehran, Netanyahu said that a “good deal” would be similar to last year’s deal to remove chemical weapons physically from Syria.
He came out against what Israel fears might be a Western willingness to allow Iran to retain nuclear capabilities but put it under an international supervisory regime.
“The whole idea of [nuclear] breakout is you throw away the inspector, and once you unlock the storehouse, you rush to make the weapons,” he said. “That is what Iran is seeking. Iran is seeking to keep enriched nuclear material, to keep centrifuges in short order, but to put a padlock on it with inspectors.”
On Wednesday, the Israeli Prime Minister chaired a meeting of senior political and security figures to discuss the threat posed by ISIS, which has brutally seized control of large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
According to an analysis from Yoram Schweitzer, Director of the Terrorism and Low-Intensity Warfare Research Project at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, over the past six months, a fierce competition in the terror world has risen to surface as the Islamic State has seen its popularity skyrocket, threatening the old dominant force – al-Qaeda.
The two groups are vying for the leadership of the global jihadi movement, which for nearly two decades was guided by Osama bin Laden.
The infamous face of terror was succeeded by his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who inherited leadership over the group's global terror operations.
But following a heated exchange between Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – the leader of the Islamic State in Syria and al-Sham – over the brutal behavior exhibited by the latter's group and its leader's insubordination, Zawahiri excommunicated ISIS from breaking their alliance.
Baghdadi's challenge to Zawahiri's leadership reached its climax when the former unilaterally declared himself as Caliph, the political successor to Muhammad – thereby elevating his status above Zawahiri.
The new reality forced international jihadi groups to pick sides in an internal conflict. So far, most of the large, organized groups – especially those already allied to al-Qaeda – like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Shabaab, and Jabhat al-Nusra have reasserted their allegiance to Zawahiri.
But even within those loyal factions, dissenting voices of support for ISIS were heard, and some even provided advice on how the Islamic State can properly withstand the US attacks on the group.
Organizations which identify with global jihad, and have are not formally allied to al-Qaeda, have expressed both indirect and outright support of the Islamic State's methods and its aim to establish a global Islamic caliphate; the aura of success radiating from the organization has charmed many potential suitors.
These statements of support also help contextualize the declaration of Boko Haram's leader, who announced the establishment of an emirate in Nigeria. At the same time, there are more signs pointing to a new alliance between Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, the Salafi jihadi group operating in the Sinai, and the Islamic State.
This connection was revealed after the release of an investigation of a senior member in the group which was involved in the murder of 25 Egyptian soldiers in August 2013 and later in the beheading of Egyptian soldiers – much in the style of ISIS.
The signs point to an organization, which originally declared allegiance to Zawahiri, on the cusp of changing its colors.
Information revealed during the investigations of the Egyptian group's members definitively cements the close operational and logistical ties between the organizations, and that the Sinai faction is expected to soon announce its allegiance to the Islamic State.
At this stage it is still too early to declare with certainty that ISIS has won the popularity contest. But there is no doubt that the possibility has weighed heavily on Zawahiri, who rushed to announce the establishment of a new al-Qaeda delegation in the Indian subcontinent in recent days.
As far as Israel is concerned, there is cause for concern of a potential alliance between the global jihadi groups operating on its borders. An alliance between Ansar Bait al-Maqdis and the Islamic State poses a threat, as the Sinai group has launched several attacks on Israel, both on the border and by firing on Eilat.
The existing alliance between Ansar Bait al-Maqdis and the Salafi jihadi Gazan group – the Mujahideen Shura Council of Jerusalem – has already raised the current threat level, and increased the importance of Israel's strategic partnership with Egypt in the war on terror.
According to Yoram Schweitzer’s analysis, the Israeli-Egyptian cooperation will become more significant not only because of their mutual interest in utilizing the security gains achieved during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge – which was intended to weaken Hamas in Gaza and rein in its operations against both countries – but also because of their joint efforts in the total war required to combat the new axis forming through Iraq, Syria, Sinai, and Gaza.