The CBS News January 30, 2015 news headline read,
“Egypt’s ISIS affiliate claims Sinai carnage”
According to CBS, the Egyptian militant group also proclaimed the Sinai Peninsula an ISIS province.
ISIS is spreading elsewhere in both the Middle East and North Africa.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) January 29, 2015 video revealed that an ISIS group, calling itself the Islamic state Tripoli Providence, has admitted responsibility for a January attack in Libya’s capital.
The WSJ stated,
Islamic State “offshoots” have declared provinces in parts of Algeria and Yemen as well.
But it singled out the Sinai group as possibly the most dangerous and added,
“… some analyst have said the situation there now is reminiscent of the conditions under which Islamic state gained traction in Iraq.”
Compounded Danger
More land is not the only thing at stake. In addition to revenue rich oil fields ISIS already occupies, solid control of the Sinai could, sooner or later, lead to another lucrative source of funds for the group — profits from the Suez Canal. That is, it could unless others step in to keep this strategic gate from the Islamic State.
Now undergoing expansion, the canal divides the Sinai Peninsula from the rest of Egypt and is heavily used as a shipping route between Europe and South Asia.
The Sinai Peninsula also shares a border with the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Around 2 1/2 months earlier, in November 2014, the Daily News Egypt was perhaps the first to report that,
“Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (ABM) officially announced their allegiance to ISIS and their recognition of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as the Amir of all Muslims this week”
It warned then that the group had two objectives:
“to hijack the north eastern part of Sinai to declare it an Islamic Caliphate” plus a “second objective, which began with uniting all armed groups under the banner of ABM.”
Read the entire CBS article here
