In the old days there was the PLO led by the turban clad and charismatic Yasser Arafat. Then out of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt came Hamas, which subsequently expelled Arafat's Fatah from the Gaza Strip in 2007. Now, a new group, Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Companions of God), has emerged in the southern town of Rafah to challenge the Hamas hegemony in the Gaza Strip. Leader of the group, Sheikh Abdel-Latif Moussa (reportedly killed on 15 August 2009) declared at the Ibn Taymiya mosque on Friday the creation of an Islamic Emirate in the southern Gaza area. Naturally, Hamas took exception to this declaration and the subsequent gun battles between Jund and Hamas gunmen left over 20 people dead overnight. It may well be that this new group is a flash in the pan, a sect if you will that has attempted to fight above its weight class. However, the fact that it was able to organise without much fuss and then suddenly appear to a world audience is of grave concern. The questions being asked now are, how strong is this group, who does it owe allegiance too and are there others just like it? Mecasr will update shortly.
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