On April 30, the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC) released a video with excerpts from the will of Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal (Abu Ziad), a jihadist who was killed in an airstrike by the Israeli Air Force earlier that day. According to the Israel Defense Forces, Masshal “manufactured, improved and traded different types of ammunition” for various jihadist groups in Gaza, and was involved in the April 17 rocket attack on Eilat from the Sinai that has been claimed by the MSC.
In the video, which was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, Masshal called on Muslims to participate in jihad and “light fire to the ground beneath the feet of the disbelievers and the apostates.” He urged Muslims to take steps toward “returning to their religion and taking down all nationalist affiliations and stepping upon all secular and democratic banners.”
Masshal also warned that Muslims must not “listen to those who want to mix between jihad, politics and democracy, for they don’t mix at all. Jihad is a divine order and democracy is a disbelieving rule through something Allah didn’t reveal.” He stated: “Jihad is continuing until the Day of Judgment, and the justice or the injustice of anyone will not stop it.”
Speaking of Hamas’ al Qassam Brigades, to which he had formerly belonged, Masshal said: “He who looks at your state today will almost cry for you, for you have unfortunately become a tool in the hand of the government that governs in Gaza.” Masshal also contended that “the government and the Interior Ministry used you to kill the mujahideen and the monotheists and storm the mosques and the homes with the people inside.”
According to a statement released by the MSC yesterday, Masshal had “stepped everywhere there is jihad, wanting to die ….The enemy sites will miss you, which you didn’t hesitate for one day to pound with rockets.” The MSC statement added that although Masshal had formerly held a “high position” in Hamas’ al Qassam Brigades, he had left the group once it “entered the game of democracy and accepted the abandonment of the divine Shari’ah.”
The MSC said that Masshal had previously worked alongside a number of Salafi jihadist leaders in the Gaza Strip, including Abu al Walid al Maqdisi and Ashraf al Sabah, two MSC leaders killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2012. The al Qaeda-linked group also noted that Masshal had worked with Abu Abdullah al-Suri (Khalid Banat), a former leader in Jund Ansar Allah, who was killed in clashes with Hamas in August 2009.
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