BICOM

According to Reuters, Israel is playing an important role in US attempts to tackle ISIS, by providing intelligence which is otherwise hard to reach.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Jordan and Saudi Arabia today to shore up support for a multi-lateral coalition against the extremist jihadist group ISIS, which has shocked global leaders with its brutality in seizing swathes of land in Syria and Iraq. According to US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, more than 40 countries have already expressed an interest in joining a US-led coalition against ISIS. The United States has commenced air strikes against ISIS targets and President Obama is set to outline his wider strategy on the issue in a speech later today.

Reuters says that Israel is supplying crucial satellite imagery and other intelligence to bolster the United States-led effort. It quotes an unnamed Western diplomat, who says that Israeli satellites can cover angles of Iraq unreachable to the Pentagon, which help to “fill out its information and get a better battle damage assessments” following US air operations. The same diplomat also said that Israel is supplying important information on Western recruits to ISIS, commenting, “The Israelis are very good with passenger data and with analysing social media in Arabic to get a better idea of who these people are.”

The report adds that the material is passed to the US with “Hebrew and other markings scrubbed out,” so as not to raise the ire of Arab partners in the anti-ISIS coalition. An Israel Defence Ministry spokesman, Yaakov Havakuk said, “We don’t comment on any assistance by us, or if there is such assistance, in the fight against ISIS.”

Last week an unnamed senior IDF officer told Haaretz that although there are no ISIS forces within 50 kilometres of the Israel-Syria border, “they might show up later on.” There are also fears that ISIS has ambitions to establish a presence in Jordan, another country bordering Israel.