The scene earlier this month in the Gaza Strip was unusual to say the least: Hamas, the hardcore Sunni Muslim group ruling the Gaza Strip, was bulldozing a Sunni mosque in the heart of Gaza. The mosque was believed to be a base for fighters belonging to a new group called Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem, an affiliate of ISIS, which Hamas sees as a rival and a dangerous influence in the region. That fear has led to a development unthinkable just a few months ago: Hamas and Israel are working toward the same goal.

Almost a year since Hamas and Israel faced off in Gaza last summer, the two now face a common enemy — the Gaza-based militants who have rebranded under the black and white flag of the ISIS. The rise of those extremists in Gaza is now threatening neighboring countries like Israel and Egypt, and giving Hamas, officially the enemy of Egypt and the sworn foe of Israel, leverage as the one entity that can stop ISIS from building a dangerous foothold between the two countries.

During the mosque raid, Hamas also arrested several members of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an Egyptian militant group that last year became ISIS’ first branch outside of Iraq and Syria, underscoring how the threat of a rising ISIS in Gaza is directed toward Egypt, not just Israel.

“In the light of Hamas’ new crackdown, we renew our loyalty to [ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and call on him to strengthen his influence and to launch a campaign in Palestine,” said a statement from Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem released after the destruction of the mosque.

And according to the Israeli military, there is only one way to fight that threat short of sending the army into Gaza again. Israel should let Hamas do the job.

“Gaza has an independent authority that functions like a country,” the head of Israel’s Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman, reportedly said during a meeting with Israeli officials last week. “Within the country there is a ruler that is called Hamas. … The only replacement for Hamas is the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and authoritarian chaos. Other than Hamas, there is no other axis that could control [Gaza].”

But the threat in Gaza is still nowhere near as dangerous as the core ISIS based in Syria and Iraq.

Gaza’s proximity to the lawless Sinai desert and the abundance of weapons available in the strip has made it home to a number of different extremist groups. For years, it has housed militants who want to unseat Hamas from power, attack Israel and declare their own Islamic state. But those militants haven’t formed a unified group yet that could threaten the status quo.

“There is no Islamic State in the Gaza Strip,” Husam Badran, a Hamas spokesperson based in Qatar, told International Business Times. “There are scattered members who sympathize with some ideas and adopt some of their policies, but they do not make up a collective organization on the ground.”

“Hamas knows the Salafis, it knows where they are and who they are,” said Maha, a Gaza resident whose name has been changed for security reasons, referring to the followers of a particularly strict interpretation of Sunni Islam. “Hamas has the power in Gaza,” she said.

For now, the Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem’s ties to ISIS are only aspirational; the group is merely a new incarnation of a previous entity, called the Mujahedeen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem. The U.S. State Department, which declared it a terrorist organization last August, described it as “an umbrella group composed of several jihadist terrorist subgroups based in Gaza that has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Israel since the group’s founding in 2012.”

When the Egyptian government began a major crackdown on Sinai militants last year, many leaders from Ansar Bayt al Maqdis took refuge in Gaza, which they reached using underground smuggling tunnels. Hamas’ policy was to allow them to silently exist as long as they would not cause trouble with Israel or challenge Hamas rule over the Strip.

That policy of looking the other way ended when Hamas and Israel entered a truce to end the summer war, which some extremists in Gaza saw as a weakening of Hamas’ position toward Israel and Egypt, and took as their cue to begin attacks against Egyptian and Israeli targets, as well as on Hamas bases. That led Hamas to take action, which thrust the group into the unlikely role of a moderate influence.

“Hamas brigades actually stopped Salafi groups from firing rockets at Israel,” said Zack Gold, a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “So not only are they no longer interested in jihad, but they’re actively stopping jihad.”

Some political factions within Gaza say Hamas has used the uptick in attacks as an opportunity to gain additional legitimacy, while quelling internal threats and solidifying its position within the Gaza Strip, where it had been accused of running an incompetent government and doing nothing to end the Israeli blockade.

“Hamas wants to get out of distress that occurred because of the war, the siege and non-payment of staff salaries, and is not interested in a new nuisance,” said Tholfikar Swairjo, a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular Marxist political party in Gaza that is a Hamas rival and also has its own armed wing.

“We offered them to help them control … Islamist extremists by giving them information and also fighters if they want it, but they refused because they are afraid of the internal revolution,” Swairjo added.

Israel and Hamas may not be cooperating outright in the face of the increased Salafi threat, but they are not impeding each other’s operations either, experts said. What’s more, Israel has very good intelligence-gathering operations in the Gaza area. In 2012, an Israeli airstrike killed Hisham al-Saidini, leader of al-Tawhid al-Jihad, a Salafi extremist group active in Sinai and Gaza, shortly after he was released from a Hamas-run prison.

“A worry that they share is that these Salafi jihadi groups will goad the two sides into war,” Gold said. If militant groups were able to attack Israel and prompt a retaliation, “we could see an escalation into a war that neither Israel nor Hamas wants,” he added.

But for the time being, the local ISIS aspirants in Gaza do not have the critical mass and cohesion to be a part of the so-called caliphate.

“The Islamic State basically ignored them,” Gold said. “The understanding was there were so many disparate groups that have no real influence and no real power, so why recognize their existence in a way that would be an embarrassment to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq?”

However, the militants’ ties to Sinai, and Hamas’ increased crackdowns, could push the Strip’s Salafi factions together.

“There is no strong indication of ISIS leadership in Iraq and Syria to coordinate with Gaza, but [the militants] can use the ISIS name and global authority to convince disparate groups to come together,” said Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism expert at the Institute for the Study of War. “ISIS explicitly imposed a strategy of getting governments to crack down to convince populations to join.”

But so far, Gazans are more concerned with the dire poverty they live in than with the possible rise of a new extremist group.

“People in Gaza have more important issues, people don’t care. People want to have food,” Maha said, adding that civilians aren’t concerned with a possible ISIS insurgency, because “Hamas is controlling Gaza with an iron fist. No one can mess with Hamas now.”

Military aircraft belonging to a rival Libyan government attacked Islamic State positions in and around the central city of Sirte, where the radical group claimed to have seized an air base, a government official said.

Islamic State has exploited the general turmoil and security vacuum in Libya to build up a presence in several cities, where two governments are vying for power four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.

The militants earlier this year seized Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, pushing to its suburbs a force loyal to a rival government in Tripoli which had expelled the official Premier Abdullah al-Thinni to the east in August.

War planes attacked Islamic State positions in Sirte, a government spokesman in Tripoli said, adding he was not aware of reports that the militants had seized the al-Qardhabia air base, located near Sirte’s civilian airport, south of the city.

Islamic State militants said in a statement on Twitter that they were in control of the base, adding that both sides were clashing at key points in Sirte.

A nearby resident said the base appeared to be under control of Islamic State, but Reuters was unable to confirm this independently.

Militant fighters in Libya loyal to Islamic State have claimed since the start of the year the killing of dozens of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians as well attacks on Tripoli’s luxury Corinthia hotel, embassies and oilfields.

Libya’s internationally recognized government has been working out of the east of the country since losing control of Tripoli and western Libya in August.

Mahmoud Shawse, a fighter for the Libya Dawn-allied 166 Brigade, had just stepped out to install a new surveillance camera when a car bomb detonated outside his base in Misrata.

Even as Mr. Shawse’s faction is locked in a prolonged struggle between two rival alliances for control of Libya, the twisted remains of the brown Hyundai in the base’s courtyard serve as a stark reminder of the growing reach of yet another force in the fractured country, the self-described Islamic State (IS).

“I never expected such an operation,” Shawse says of the March attack that wounded two of his colleagues and ripped open the walls of his office. “Even though such things are happening everywhere, in Syria and Iraq, this is my turf. This is Misrata.”

His remarks capture the zeitgeist of Misrata, a Mediterranean city that projects power well beyond its perimeter. Here, the population views itself as invincible and impenetrable by the likes of IS militants, who have settled in Sirte, the city where dictator Muammar Qaddafi was captured and lynched in 2011.

In his fight to hold on to power, the late dictator laid siege to Misrata for months, an experience that spawned scores of armed groups allied today in their backing of the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC). The scars of fierce fighting still show on the streets of this modern Sparta, where many residents still view themselves as warriors.

Before a series of bomb attacks in March and May hit their city, Misratis underplayed the IS threat, blaming Qaddafi loyalists for its rise. Some dismissed the IS slaughter of 21 Egyptian Copts in January as “propaganda,” filmed not on the coast of Libya but in Egypt, a major backer of Khalifa Haftar, the anti-Islamist Libyan general who commands the forces of the rival eastern alliance based in Al Bayda and Tobruk.

But attitudes have shifted. Now Misrata’s military and intelligence officers keep images of dead IS fighters on their phones. The group’s black banner – imprinted with the Muslim declaration of faith in white – is a trophy strewn on some coffee tables.

But nobody is taking any chances, as evidenced in the mushrooming of security cameras.

Keeping IS bottled up

For Misrata commanders like Mohammed Ihsaa, the goal is to keep any confrontation with IS centered on Sirte, a healthy 150 miles from Misrata.

“Daesh is in every city of Libya, even if in very small numbers,” he says, using a derogatory shorthand for IS. “But if we bring down Sirte then these smaller groups will disappear, as they will not have a base to sustain them.”

IS locked its grip on Sirte in February, raising its dark banner over the Ouagadougou complex where Mr. Qaddafi hosted lavish pan-African conferences. It also took the hospital, university, and radio station. Misrata forces now surround the city, much as they did in 2011.

Today there are sporadic skirmishes but no major offensive, Mr. Ihsaan says, lamenting the lack of Libyan unity and international support.

“IS is a tumor spreading in Libya and will spread on to Europe if left unchecked,” he warns. “They already have members in Europe, we have recordings of phone calls made to many European countries” by IS members caught in Libya.

In Sirte, neglect drew in jihadists

For Libyans, Sirte – roughly 300 miles from Sicily –  “is the link between the east and the west. Sirte opens directly to the sea on the north and to the desert in the south,” explains Ismail Shukri, spokesman for the Misrata forces surrounding the city.

Large swathes of Sirte were destroyed in the 2011 fighting, and residents there felt neglected by the subsequent transitional governments. The security vacuum drew in North African foreign fighters, Libyan jihadists returning from the front lines of Syria and Iraq, and IS militants.

Libyan officials in Tripoli and Bayda put the number of IS backers in the oil-rich nation at a maximum of 500. One senior intelligence officer in Misrata, however, gave a far higher figure. “There must be at least 4,000,” he said, basing that estimate on the number of worshipers joining Friday prayers led by IS-vetted preachers in Sirte.

“The elders keep telling us not to come into the city, that their sons are with IS, and that they will handle the issue themselves,” adds the intelligence officer. “They want any fighting to take place in the desert, not in the city.”

Islamist allies

The first hard-line Islamist faction to take root in Sirte was Ansar al-Sharia, a rebel group involved in the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed a US diplomat. It later helped helped pave the way for IS.

“In the beginning, Ansar al-Sharia were the solution, not the problem,” recalls the mayor of Misrata, Ali Busitta, who sits on a small committee of elders from Sirte and Misrata. “They would settle the problems between the families and the tribes. The problem began when foreigners came in.”

Islamist Libyans argue that what distinguishes IS from Ansar al-Sharia – branded by the United Nations and Washington as a terrorist group – is their attitude to governance. Both want to see a strict interpretation of Islamic Law enforced in the conservative Muslim country, but only IS wants to take power.

“Today they work together because they are joined by a common enemy: Misrata in the west and General Khaftar in the east,” says Khaled, a native of Sirte. “In Sirte, they have local support, because all people see is Misrata coming to attack them again, as they did in 2011.”

Tunisia has arrested a second Moroccan suspect over a deadly attack in March on the Bardo museum in Tunis, the interior ministry said Thursday.

Noureddine al-Naibi was arrested on Sunday at Ras Jedir border post on the frontier with Libya on suspicion of indirect involvement in the attack, ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP.

Last week, a young Moroccan man was arrested in Italy for allegedly helping in the March 18 attack carried out by two Tunisian gunmen in which 21 tourists and a policeman were killed before the assailants were also shot dead.

A recently released satellite image shows six MiG-21s at Gamal Abdel Nasser Air Base on 21 April. Five of the six are painted in the distinctive camouflage pattern of the MiG-21MF jets that are believed to have been donated to the LNA by Egypt.

More evidence has emerged showing that the Libyan National Army (LNA) continues to receive aircraft and armoured vehicles from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The LNA is a coalition of military units and allied militias that is fighting on behalf of the Tobruk-based government against Islamist militants and the Libya Dawn coalition that fights on behalf of the rival Tripoli-based government.

The LNA now appears to have five MiG-21s that are believed to have been supplied by Egypt. The aircraft seen in photographs released on social media channels associated with the LNA show that at least some of these aircraft are MiG-21MFs – a type not previously been in service in Libya – and painted in a brown and yellow camouflage scheme that is closer to one used on Egyptian MiG-21s than on Libyan ones.

Some 521 tunnels have been blocked between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, including 63 which range from one to 2.8 kilometres from the border, the Egyptian army revealed yesterday.

The report covering the period from October 2014 to April 2015 also revealed that border guards arrested 6,004 people, both Egyptians and of other nationalities, who were trying to sneak out of the country.

Additionally, the report said 6,097 weapons were seized. They included automatic pistols, submachine and standard guns, as well as rifle cartridges.