You won't believe who #al-Qaida is fighting now

By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

Gaza-Egypt border crossin

JERUSALEM – The group representing al-Qaida in the Gaza Strip is far larger and more organized than most security officials here previously thought.
WND has obtained an internal report prepared this week by the Egyptian government, with input from Hamas, that puts the numbers of al-Qaida terrorists in Gaza at between 2,600 and 3,000 armed men.
Previous estimates, both from within Hamas and from Israel, put the number of armed al-Qaida men in Gaza in the hundreds.
Get the details from those who were there, in "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out"
According to the Egyptian report, there is no specific information the al-Qaida group is planning imminent large-scale attacks against Israel. Instead, the report claims, the armed Islamists are focused on building their bases in the Gaza Strip and connecting those bases to the neighboring Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
The al-Qaida group is largely made up of two organizations that merged together – Jihadiya Salafiya (the Jihad of Ancestors) and Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam).
The new group is suspected in the kidnapping and murder of Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist in Gaza who was found hanged Friday, hours after he was nabbed by the Islamist group.
On Tuesday, two suspects in Arringoni's murder, both from the Jihadiya Salafiya group, died during a Hamas raid at a home in central Gaza.
While both Hamas and al-Qaida are offshoots of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the groups often clash over a difference in tactics.

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