Jihadi upstarts a threat to Hamas

RAFAH, Gaza Strip | They preach global jihad, or holy war, adhere to an ultraconservative form of Islam and are becoming a headache even for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza.

Jihadi Salafis, as they are known, have organized into small, shadowy armed groups that have clashed with Hamas forces and fired rockets at Israel in defiance of Hamas’ informal truce.

Perhaps even more worrisome for Hamas, they claim a growing appeal among Gazans in the territory’s pressure cooker of isolation and poverty, raising fears they could serve as a bridgehead for their ideological twin, al Qaeda, from which they take their call for global holy war.

Hamas insists it dismantled the groups after a mosque shootout last summer that left 26 dead.

But after months of lying low, Jihadi Salafis became active again. Besides resuming rocket fire on Israel in recent weeks, they blew up the car of a Hamas chief outside his southern Gaza home. The chief, who was not in the car, was unhurt, and the group that took responsibility said the blast was a warning.

“We will not stop targeting the figures of this perverted, crooked government [Hamas], breaking their bones and cleansing the pure land of the Gaza Strip of these abominations,” said the group, the Soldiers of the Monotheism Brigades. “What will come next will be harder and more horrible.”

Going by names like “Rolling Thunder” and “Army of God,” they oppose Hamas for refraining from imposing Islamic law since seizing power in Gaza in 2007 and largely sticking to a tactical truce with Israel since the latter’s devastating offensive last year.

Expert opinion holds that al Qaeda has shown little interest in inviting the Gaza groups it inspired into the fold. But even an al Qaeda foothold in Gaza could pose a significant challenge to Hamas’ control as well as its attempts to get off Western governments’ terrorist list and lift the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza.

Hamas’ own rapid rise to power is a reminder of the appeal of militant ideas in the absence of a peace process.

Gaza’s Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, acknowledges that some in Gaza have been swept up by the ideas of the Jihadi Salafi groups.

“If this is a phenomenon among some young men in Gaza, they will be treated with discussions and meetings,” Mr. Haniyeh said in a sermon to mosque worshippers recently. However, he rejected any suggestion of an al Qaeda presence in Gaza and repudiated the call to global jihad.

Still, Hamas may inadvertently have helped create a climate for Salafi growth with its own gradual push to make Gaza more Islamic, including a “virtue campaign” that urges women to cover up. But Hamas has stopped short of a direct Taliban-style assault on secularism.

“It is more difficult for Hamas to deal with these people because they are selling the same goods: religion,” said Mahmoud Abu Rahmeh, a Gaza human rights researcher.

The Salafi movement has grown across the Middle East, preaching an ultraconservative Islam similar to Saudi Arabia’s, strictly segregating the sexes and interpreting religious texts literally.

Salafis tend to be nonpolitical, but a minority jihadist stream embraces the al Qaeda call for holy war against the West and the moderate Arab leaders in its camp.

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