Jund al-Islam
Jund al-Islam was an active armed insurgent group affiliated with al-Qaeda operating primarily in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
This article is about Egyptian insurgent group. For the Kurdish jihadist group that previously/before had the same name, see Ansar ul Islam.
Jund al-Islam
Soldiers of Islam
History[edit]
The group was established in February 2011 and conducted its first action as a group in May 2011 after the death of Osama bin Laden by showing off its military capabilities, and remained inactive from then until 2013.
On September 9, 2013, the group claimed responsibility for a major double suicide attack against an Egyptian military intelligence compound in northern Sinai in the city of Rafah, resulting in the death of 6 soldiers and seventeen injuries months after the fall of Egypt's former president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. In a statement regarding the attack Ansar Beit al-Maqdis praised the attack and claimed it was in response for Egyptian crackdowns against Islamists following the fall of Morsi and cooperation with Israel. Jund al-Islam likewise released a statement with similar rhetoric.[5][6] On January 2, 2014, gunmen shot dead Mark De Salis and Lynn Howie as they ate lunch on a beach in near Sabratah, Zawiya district, Libya. Jund Al-Islam claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming that the couple was targeted for being foreign spies.[7][8][9]
In November 2017 the group reemerged again, declaring its opposition to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Jund al-Islam claims that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ISIL are Kharijites, and also claims that ISIL's Sinai branch has committed abuses against the local Muslim population and besieged the Gaza Strip.[10]
In January 2018, a Russian foreign fighter part of ISIL's Sinai province defected to Jund al-Islam after several disagreements with ISIL's leadership in Sinai, and was featured in a video released by Jund al-Islam criticizing ISIL.[11][12]
Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai claimed to have "exterminated" the remnants of Jund al-Islam in July 2020, after an encounter in which seven members of the group including their leader 'Abu Ayyub' were killed in the village of al-Burath.[13]