Commentary: As ISIS expands its reach, Israel could again become a top priority
Over the past several weeks, the Islamic State (ISIS) and its affiliates have claimed responsibility for major terrorist attacks in Ankara, Sinai, Beirut and Paris and are threatening more.
In Ankara, over 100 people were killed in two bombings outside the central railway station; in Sinai, 224 died when a civilian Russian aircraft, Metrojet flight 9268 to St. Petersburg exploded shortly after take-off; in Beirut, more than 40 people were killed by two suicide bombers; and a hail of indiscriminate gunfire and bombings in Paris in mid-November claimed at least 129 lives.
For Israel, closest to home is the Islamic State’s Wilayat Sinai, or Sinai Province, active just across the border with Egypt, where it threatens not only Israel but a key moderate Arab regime. Indeed, this year has seen an escalation of Wilayat Sinai’s war on the secular Egyptian government led by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In early January, despite an intensive Egyptian military campaign against it, the ISIS affiliate staged one of its biggest terrorist attacks: a coordinated strike against 15 military targets in North Sinai, including a siege of the town of Sheikh Zuweid. Two days earlier its gunmen killed the Egyptian prosecutor-general in a car bombing in Cairo.