On Monday, the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC) released to jihadist forums a 32-minute-long video detailing some of the group's recent rocket attacks against southern Israel. The video, titled "We Will Continue Pounding Their Strongholds," was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence group.
SITE notes that the group "used the production not only to show some of the attacks it carried out over the past three months, but to respond to those who charged it with stealing rockets from Palestinian resistance organizations in Gaza, and abrogating the ceasefire with Israel."
In the video, a member of the group who was identified as Abu Usama al Muhajir says: "[R]ockets aren't affected by the walls behind which the cowardly Jews usually take cover. The servants of Allah come at them from where they didn't expect, and rockets fall on them carrying messages of glory and revenge of Muslims and spreading death, destruction and horror in every Jewish house, school, street and city."
Later al Muhajir says that despite having a lesser arsenal than other groups, such as Hamas, the MSC has no intention of suspending its jihad against Israel. "[T]he Ummah didn't give them weapons to remain held in warehouses while Muslims are being slaughtered and bombed day and night," al Muhajir states.
Al Muhajir also addresses allegations that the MSC has stolen rockets from other groups operating in the Gaza Strip. According to al Muhajir, "The rockets with which we pound the Jewish usurping enemy are either local or international, and as for the local, by the grace of Allah the Almighty, we have enough evidence that prove that we manufactured them." He adds that the foreign rockets are obtained "with difficulty through means and ways that there is no need to mention."
The video concludes with a member of the MSC saying: "We in the Mujahideen Shura Council will pound your settlements and will uproot you, Allah the Almighty permitting, from our land, and we will fight you as long as we hold on weapons in our hands. May our mothers be bereaved of us if we leave any of you on our land. Our jihad is continuing until Allah inherits the Earth and everything in it, and will continue despite the pursuits, imprisonment and torture."
Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem
The Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC) is a consolidation of a number of Salafi-Jihadist groups operating in the Gaza Strip including, but not limited to: Tawhid and Jihad Group in Jerusalem, and Ansar al Sunnah. The group has taken responsibility for a number of rocket attacks against Israel as well as the June 18, 2012 attack that killed one Israeli civilian.
In July, the MSC released a 38-minute-long video in which it 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 Israeli Defense Forces has recently increased its targeting of MSC members. On Oct. 7, the IDF killed Tala'at Halil Muhammad Jarbi, a "global jihad operative," and Abdullah Muhammad Hassan Maqawai, a member of the MSC. Maqawai was likely a former member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On Oct. 13, Israel killed Abu al Walid al Maqdisi, the former emir of the Tawhid and Jihad Group in Jerusalem, and Ashraf al Sabah, the former emir of Ansar al Sunnah, in an airstrike. The two were said to be leaders of the MSC.