Palestinian Salafists pose dangerous new problem for Hamas

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/gaza-salafists-problem-hamas-islamic-state-isis

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There are two conflicting accounts of how Younis Hunnar, a young militant Salafist leader in Gaza, died.

The official version recounted by Hamas officials, whose security forces killed Hunnar, is that the 27-year-old militant leader was caught at his house in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City with weapons and a suicide vest.

Called to surrender, he instead attempted to set off his bomb vest and was killed in an “intense exchange of fire”.

A family member tells a different story. In this version Hunnar, a former member of Hamas’s armed wing – the Qassam brigades – who left two years ago to join a new faction notionally aligned with Islamic State, was hiding at home, fearful of being jailed again.

When Hamas security forces stormed his house he was wounded first, then shot with two bullets to the head.

Whatever the truth about the exact circumstances of Hunnar’s death, what is certain is that it has become emblematic of resurgent tension between Gaza’s Salafists and Hamas, which governs the coastal strip.

The conflict with the militant Salafists – totalling a few hundred at most – has led to a Hamas crackdown and, in reprisal, three rockets fired by the Salafists at Israel. This has in turn drawn air strikes in response, including against targets associated with Gaza’s ruling faction.

We are not interested in beheadings. We are only interested in the appeal to people to be better Muslims

And it is the Salafists’ successful attempts to draw a military response from Israel that has escalated the problem in recent weeks from a local rivalry marked by a series of minor bombings to something more dangerous.

Violence by Gaza’s Salafists – some now aligning themselves with Isis – is not a new phenomenon but in the past it has been seen as a limited threat that Hamas found easy to control.

The first serious confrontation occurred in 2009 when Hamas fighters stormed a mosque in the southern town of Rafah, which a group called the Warriors of God had taken over. Six of them were killed. Another crackdown followed the abduction and murder by Salafists in 2011 of Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist resident in Gaza.

But since the end of the last summer’s war in Gaza – and amid growing dissatisfaction over the failure to secure any relief from Gaza’s long Israeli- and Egyptian-imposed blockade – small militant Salafist groups have become active again.

A series of bomb attacks in recent months has targeted both foreign offices and Hamas, leading to the latest Hamas crackdown, which has seen dozens of Salafists rounded up and jailed, and a Salafist-linked mosque destroyed in Deir al-Balah in May. In response, Salafist groups fired rockets at Israel in an attempt to put pressure on Hamas to release their members, a tactic that – so far – has singularly failed.

And although many Salafists have been rounded up, others are still at large. “We are different to Hamas,” a young Salafist militant, who gave the nickname of Abu Bilel, said last week.

A friend of Hunnar, he had agreed to meet the Guardian along with one of Hunnar’s cousins, who gave the name Abu Khalid.

“Hamas looks for power and money,” said Abu Bilel. “People are fed up with Hamas. We only care about religion. We don’t understand why they are arresting us.”

Abu Khalid explained why his cousin left Hamas’s armed wing: “He went to be with the Qassam brigades but found them to be corrupted. So two years ago he left and joined the Salafists. He was arrested many times and beaten. Before he died he was told to surrender himself but he did not want to return to jail.”

Abu Bilel at first said that the Salafists had been attempting to press Hamas to release colleagues. “We tried threats and some explosions but it seems it is not easy to pressure Hamas.” Later, however, he blamed the explosions on Hamas itself. He was equally vague about his own group’s announced sympathy to Isis. “We are not like the Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic name for Isis.

“We are not interested in beheadings. We are only interested in the appeal to people to be better Muslims.” When asked about statements by the group aligning itself with Isis, he did not answer.

Experts disagree over the trajectory of the latest surge in Salafist-related violence in Gaza and on how Hamas will deal with it.

While the different Salafist groups seem to be small and loosely structured, lacking clear policies and leadership, some observers believe they are being sustained, to a degree, by former members who fled to the Egyptian Sinai after the last campaign against them by Hamas three years ago.

Within Gaza too – according to Abu Bilel – they have benefited from financial backing from wealthy individuals.

Salafist groups in Iraq and Syria are strong and face a weak enemy. In Gaza they are weak and face a very strong enemy

One suggestion is that Hamas had been willing to tolerate limited activities by Salafist groups while they “played by the rules of the game” – rules that by any estimate have been broken by the recent rocket fire.

“They are personally serious,” said the Gaza analyst Omar Shaban. “They are serious in how they see themselves. But are they a serious phenomenon in Gaza? I don’t believe so. Salafist groups in Iraq and Syria are serious because they are strong and face a weak enemy. Here in Gaza it is the reverse. They are weak and face a very strong enemy.’

Where Shaban, however, sees a problem is in how Hamas negotiates the challenge that they pose. “It is not good for Hamas to be seen fighting another Islamist group. But they are well monitored.”

Usama Antar, another analyst, disagrees. “I don’t think it is a question of how big they are. I think it is a question of ideology, because it is so widespread [in the Middle East]. They are people who are not interested in normal life and they have a message. The situation here in Gaza is optimal for them to spread their message with the blockade and a sense of hopelessness. It is easy for them.”

What is true is that unlike other Salafist groups that have risen to prominence since the Arab spring, those in Gaza have not had the benefit of porous and chaotic borders, or the ability to access weapons and support.

But what does appear to be a problem for Hamas is that a number of Salafist activists – such as Hunnar – are former members of Hamas, including one of the movement’s leading ideologues and preachers, Adnan Mayyat, who was recently released from jail.

According to Abu Bilel – in claims that could not be independently verified – the rockets fired recently at Israel were originally Hamas rockets diverted by those sympathetic to the Salafists. The site of one rocket launch, say those familiar with it, was one used by Hamas during last summer’s war.

“We don’t have our own rockets,” he explained, adding that members of his group had also had “military training” from former members of Hamas who had defected.

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Taher al-Nounou, an adviser to the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, believes Israel’s response to the recent Salafist rocket fire has complicated the matter by allowing the Salafists to leverage the Israeli response in their favour: “Israel did exactly what the Salafists wanted them to do in bombing in response to the attacks. The Salafists were looking for an escalation [to put pressure on Hamas].

“The situation is also different in Gaza from places where Salafist groups have come to prominence. Palestinians are united in seeing Israel as the enemy and there is no desire among people in Gaza for more internal problems and clashes between factions.

“It is also the case that not everyone who believes in the Salafist ideology supports this. If you look at the map of who is Salafist here, not everyone who shares their ideology has a problem with Hamas.

“Instead the difficulties are being driven by those who have personal problems with Hamas. Those are the people who have been behind the recent explosions. It is not political, but people with personal issues, and we know how to deal with those people.”