On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), with support from the Shin Bet, targeted Tala'at Halil Muhammad Jarbi, and Abdullah Muhammad Hassan Maqawai in southern Gaza. An official in Gaza said that 11 people were wounded in the air strike, according to Ma'an News Agency.
Tala'at Halil Muhammad Jarbi is reportedly a "global jihad operative," while Abdullah Muhammad Hassan Maqawai is said to be a member of the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC). Jarbi was currently planning a "complex attack intended to take place along the Sinai border," according to a statement on the IDF website.
"Tala'at [Halil Muhammad Jarbi] was involved in extensive terrorist activity, targeting Israeli civilian and security forces, including rocket firing, weapon manufacturing, and other terrorist activities in the Gaza Strip," the IDF said. The IDF further charged that he was "involved in the planning and execution of" the Jun. 18, 2011 attack, which killed one Israeli civilian. The MSC claimed responsibility for the attack.
In July, the group released a 38-minute-long video during which they said that the June attack was "a gift to our brothers in Qaedat al Jihad and Sheikh Zawahiri" and retaliation for the death of Osama bin Laden.
The IDF targeted and killed several "Global Jihad affiliated-terrorists" in airstrikes in Gaza in December 2011. Two of the terrorists who were killed were members of Hamas prior to joining the unnamed Salafist group. Also killed in a separate strike was an emir of the al Qaeda-linked Jaish al Islam, or Army of Islam.
For more information on al Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the Egyptian Sinai and Gaza Strip, see LWJ reports, Israeli intelligence: Sinai is the 'home of an independent jihadist network', US designates Palestinian Salafist group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and Ansar al Jihad swears allegiance to al Qaeda's emir; and Threat Matrix report, New jihadist group emerges in the Egyptian Sinai.
David Barnett is a research assistant at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.