The Islamist terrorist group Daesh has posted on its website Dabeq a video clip that carried threats to Christians. The video carried the title “Fight all al-Mushrikeen” (literally those who worship more than one god. Christians believe in the Trinity, so are seen as Mushrikeen). They used such words as: “We will chase you; we will put an end to you; you won’t escape from us”.
The video featured the last words of Mahmoud Shafiq, 22, whose jihadi name was Abu-Abdullah al-Masri, and who blew himself up in the church of al-Boutrossiya in Cairo during Sunday Mass on 11 December 2016, killing 28 worshippers. Shafiq threatened Christians with death and bloodshed, and that the strike “in your temple is only the first of many more to come”. The video was posted yesterday 19 February.
The Dar al-Iftaa’ al-Misriya, Egyptian Fatwa House (fatwa is an Islamic legal opinion), issued a statement in which it condemned the Daesh video as an attempt to sow division between Egypt’s Muslims and Christians. It said that the relation between Muslims and Christians was erroneously depicted as one of conflict and confrontation, and that Daesh took Qur’anic verses out of their original context to propagate the concept that Muslims should fight Christians to the very end.
The most significant feature in the Daesh video was that it no longer used the name “Sinai Province” but used “Islamic State – Egypt” instead. This was taken to indicate that the Jihadi group was no longer restricting its operations in Sinai, but was spreading out in all Egypt.