JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli-Arab was arrested for helping relatives cross from Israel into Syria to fight with the al-Qaida affiliate there.
Idris Abu Alqayan, 23, of the Bedouin town of Hura, was charged this month with conspiracy to commit a crime and aiding an illegal exit from Israel, according to Israeli reports Tuesday. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency had arrested Alqayan in April.
Alqayan is accused of helping his brother Othman and a cousin, Shafiq Abu Alqayan, also from Hura, cross into Syria in April to join al-Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The Shin Bet said it was the first time an Israeli from the Negev, rather than a region near Syria’s border, had crossed into Syria to fight with a rebel group or otherwise aided the rebels in the civil war there.
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