In what appears to be another unfortunate ISIS captive being used by the ISIS propaganda machine, the Islamic terrorist group, also known as Islamic State, claims it has captured an Israeli Arab spy that was trying to expose ISIS secrets .
ISIS announced on Thursday that it had an Israeli Arab in custody who had come to Syria under the guise of being a foreign fighter, but was really an Israeli spy working on behalf of Mossad , the Israeli national intelligence agency. Israel says ISIS has made the whole thing up, as does the alleged Israeli spy’s family, both saying the accused Israeli spy in question had actually been kidnapped by ISIS, according to Reuters .
A trademark ISIS “interview” with the alleged Israeli spy, which reads more like a confession, was published by ISIS’s self-promoting online English-language magazine, Dabiq, reports the Jerusalem Post .
According to ISIS, via Dabiq , Muhammad Musallam, 19, told them he joined ISIS so he could sneak information back to the Israelis regarding ISIS weapons caches, bases, and Palestinian recruits.
The Dabiq confession/interview then really lays it on thick by having the alleged Israeli spy say he had been recruited by his Jewish police officer neighbor.
“He came to me one day and asked if I want to work for the Israeli intelligence,” confesses Muslam.
“I told him that I would think about his offer.”
Then, with his Israeli spy undertaking well underway, Musallam relates — no doubt beneath the watchful eyes of ISIS editors — how his cover was blown, the suspicions of the Johnny-on-the-spot ISIS commanders prompting the Israeli teen to panic and phone his father in East Jerusalem. ISIS took the suspected Israeli spy into custody shortly thereafter.
“I say to all those who want to spy on the Islamic State, don’t think that you’re so smart and that you can deceive the Islamic State,” the ISIS magazine claims Musallam wrote. “You won’t succeed at all… Stay away from this path. Stay away from helping the Jews and the murtaddin (apostates). Follow the right path.”
Meanwhile, Musallam’s father says his son is no Israeli spy at all, but disappeared while vacationing in Turkey. The supposed Israeli spy then gave his dad a phone call saying he’d been abducted and taken into Syria, but that he “could buy his way out.”
“He said, ‘Dad, I need $200 or $300 so they will let me go,’” the alleged Israeli spy’s father told Reuters. But before he could deliver any money or set up an exchange, another phone call claimed that while Musallam had escaped his captors, it was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, as he’d then been captured by ISIS.
A different version of what transpired and how ISIS has arrived at a juncture where they’re claiming to have captured an Israeli spy, comes from an Israeli security official who said the ISIS captive went to Turkey back in October to fight for ISIS.
“He went on his own initiative, without his family’s knowledge,” said the official to Reuters. When asked if he could confirm that Musallam was not an Israeli spy, the official replied, “You can understand it that way, yes.”
Any hopes of ISIS releasing the alleged Israeli spy, Musallam, are grim. As pointed out by the Jerusalem Post , after ISIS receives its public confession, regardless of its authenticity, “it is most likely that the ‘spy’ will be executed.”
[Image by Abid Katib/Getty Images]