The jihadist Islamic State (IS) group on Sunday lambasted recent agreements to normalize relations between Israel and the Gulf countries, and called for attacks in Saudi Arabia.
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In an audio recording broadcast on the organization's Telegram channel and attributed to its spokesman Abu Hamza El Qourachi, ISIS believes that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have betrayed Islam by normalizing their relations with Israel.
These two Arab countries are close allies of Saudi Arabia, a leader of the Gulf monarchies which has not normalized its ties with Israel but is engaged in what experts call soft or alternative normalization.
The spokesman for the jihadist organization therefore urged the group's fighters and Muslims to carry out attacks in the Saudi kingdom, land of the holiest places of Islam.
After controlling territory straddling Iraq and Syria, ISIS lost its last big Syrian stronghold in 2019, after being completely crushed in Iraq.
Its former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in October 2019. Their self-proclaimed "caliphate" in 2014 defeated, many IS jihadists take refuge in a vast desert area near the Iraqi-Syrian border, in where they prepare and conduct regular attacks.