You have commented 375 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Former IDF soldier charged with training to fight abroad with Islamic State
2026-09-03
[IsraelTimes] Indictment charges that Khamis Sawaed, from the Bedouin village of Hussniyya, became interested in ISIS in 2023 and was planning to travel to Syria or Africa to join group

A former IDF soldier was charged on Wednesday with training to fight abroad with the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) terror group, the Israel Police and Shin Bet security agency said.

The Haifa District Attorney’s Office filed the indictment against Khamis Sawaed, a resident of the northern Bedouin village of Hussniyya, at the Haifa Magistrate’s Court along with a request to keep him in jug until the end of the legal proceedings, the security agencies said in a joint statement.

Sawaed, who is in his 30s, was arrested for interrogation "in recent weeks," according to the statement.

Over the course of his interrogation, Sherlocks found that starting in 2023, Sawaed had watched how-to videos on warfare and missile and drone production out of "identification with the Islamic State terror group," the statement said.

According to the indictment filed against Sawaed and cited in Hebrew-language media, Sawaed served in the IDF from 2017 to 2019, but in 2023 became interested in ISIS. He then began watching the training videos in 2024, after deciding he would eventually go abroad, either to Syria or somewhere in Africa, to fight alongside the group.

Among the videos he watched was footage of beheadings carried out by ISIS in order to "toughen himself," Channel 12 reported.

Dozens of Arab citizens have been arrested in recent years on suspicion of plotting attacks on behalf of Islamic State, including five residents of Taybe who allegedly plotted to set off a boom-mobile at Tel Aviv’s Azrieli mall in 2024.

Last week, the Shin Bet and police announced the indictment of two teenagers from the Galilee who were accused of researching explosives to attack Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount.

Islamic State, which at one point ruled over large swaths of Iraq and Syria, in 2022 called on its supporters in Israel to carry out attacks.

The demand came after Israel moved to crack down on ISIS after six Israelis were killed in a pair of terror attacks in Beersheba and Hadera by Arab Israeli supporters of the jihadist group.
Related:
Hussniyya: 2025-02-17 Palestinian teen jailed for 18 years for 2023 killing of Border Police officer
Hussniyya: 2023-02-24 13-year-old Palestinian indicted for killing Border Police officer in East Jerusalem
Hussniyya: 2023-02-14 Policeman dies after being stabbed by Palestinian, hit by friendly fire
Posted by:trailing wife

00:00