Barak outlaws Nazareth group with links to al-Qaida

Known as Ansar Allah, three of its members participated in murder of Nazareth Illit taxi driver; two members trained in Somalia.

By YAAKOV KATZ
Nazereth 521 (photo credit: Makbula Nassar )
Nazereth 521
(photo credit: Makbula Nassar )
Defense Minister Ehud Barak signed an order on Tuesday outlawing a Nazareth-based Islamic organization accused of having links to al-Qaida and global jihad terrorist groups.
Three of Ansar Allah’s members participated in the murder of taxi driver Yafim Weinstein in November 2009, as well as in other attacks.
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Weinstein, 54, a resident of Upper Nazareth, was found murdered in his cab outside Kibbutz Kfar Hahoresh.
The three members of Ansar Allah founded a sevenman group called Aljahabiyya, which was inspired by and affiliated with al- Qaida and global jihad. Two of the members tried traveling to an al-Qaida training camp in Somalia to join the fighting against the Christian “heretics” and the US, but were barred from entering Somalia at the Kenyan border.
The head of the group is Sheikh Nazim Abu Salim, the imam of the Shihab-e- Din Mosque in downtown Nazareth. Abu Salim was arrested by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) in June 2009 but was later released. He has in the past referred to Israel as launching a “Zionist-Crusader” attack on Islam.