Two Bedouin-Israeli teenage girls charged with planning ISIS attack
Suspects Rahma Al-Assad and Tasnin Al-Assad, both 19, indicted for being in contact with Islamic State and preparing an attack
Two Bedouin citizens of Israel were arrested for allegedly planning to carry out an attack for the Islamic State terrorist group.
Rahma Al-Assad and Tasnin Al-Assad, both 19-year-old residents of Lakiya in the Negev in southern Israel, were indicted on Monday in Southern District Court in Beersheba on charges of being in contact with Islamic State terrorists. The charges also including planning a deadly terror attack and joining an illegal organisation.
The young women contacted Islamic State terrorists abroad last year, the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, said in a statement released on Monday. They were instructed to carry out smaller missions on behalf the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ahead of a larger terror attack planned for New Year’s Eve, according to reports.
Among the missions was visiting the campus of Ben Gurion University in Beersheba to determine if they could bring in a suitcase full of explosives for a bomb attack. They also refused to carry out an attack at the central bus station ion Beersheba because of the large number of Arab-Israelis and Muslims who use it.
They planned to join the Islamic State in the Sinai after the attack on New Year’s Eve.
The two women were arrested on December 18 and Ahmad Abu Ramila, 24, of eastern Jerusalem, who was to marry Tasnin al-Assad, was arrested on December 26. A gag order was placed on the cases until after the hearing on Monday.
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