Terror group says accords amount to ‘betrayal’ of Islam, accuses Riyadh of complicity and urges assault on Western targets as well as oil and money sources of ‘tyrant government’
The Islamic State group on Sunday condemned Israel’s normalization accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, calling for retaliatory attacks on Saudi Arabia.
IS spokesman Abu Hamza al-Quraishi, in a purported audio recording posted on Telegram, said the deals with the Jewish state signed last month amounted to a “betrayal” of Islam.
Bahrain and the UAE are both allies of Saudi Arabia which has yet to formally normalize ties with Israel, though it is widely believed to have close clandestine ties with Jerusalem.
The spokesman urged IS fighters and other Muslims to carry out anti-Western attacks in the kingdom, home to Islam’s holiest sites.
“Targets are plenty… Start by hitting and destroying oil pipelines, factories and facilities which are the source [of income] of the tyrant government,” he said, according to a translation by Reuters.
He noted that Riyadh had given its blessing to the accords by allowing flights between Israel and the UAE to go over its territory.
In the group’s last recording in January, the IS spokesman called for attacks on Jewish targets to counter US President Donald Trump’s peace proposals for the Middle East.
The IS group commanded a proto-state across swathes of Iraq and Syria before its territory was seized in successive campaigns in both countries in 2018-2019.
Saudi Arabi continues to insist a Palestinian state is a prerequisite to normalization with Israel.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/islamic-state-calls-to-attack-saudi-arabia-over-israels-deals-with-uae-bahrain/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.