Jihadists claim Libyan city for Islamic State

Photos and video emerge of Islamic State's black flags in Libya although ISIS leaders have not commented on the "annexation" of Derna into the Islamic State.

3 October: MSSI supporters celebrate the 'annexation' of Derna to the ISIS 'caliphate'
3 October: MSSI supporters celebrate the 'annexation' of Derna to the ISIS 'caliphate'

A Libyan jihadist group – the Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam, or Islamic Youth Shura Council (MSSI) – has announced it has claimed territory in the city of Derna as part of the ‘caliphate’ that the Islamic State is seeking to extend over the Muslim world.

ISIS leaders have not commented on this proclamation or formally "annexed" this land into the Islamic State.

On 3 October - according to information clearing house Jihadology.net - MSSI said the territory controlled in Derna was now part of the caliphate, refashioning the city as Wilayat Derna, the province of Derna within the Islamic State. The latter claim may have been issued because 15 ISIS members were allegedly dispatched from Syria to Derna recently.

To celebrate the announcement, MSSI organized a forum at al-Sahaba Mosque called "khilafah ala manhaj al-nabawiyah (the Caliphate upon the methodology of the Prophet)", a slogan used by ISIS in the past year. Hundreds took part in the event.

The forum showed off the ISIS flag and MSSI cars with "Islamic police" painted on them; some cars said "hisba" on top in bold and "al-amr bi-l-marouf wa-l-nahi an al-munkr" (the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice) in smaller text below. The organizers also played nashid – religiously sanctioned a cappella music – published by Ajnad Media, an ISIS outlet.

But along with some local residents, the mainstream rebel faction Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade announced it would never pledge an oath of allegiance to anyone outside Libya, and the two groups are believed to be involved in a turf battle in parts of Derna that has left many dead and injured in the past few weeks.

MSSI publicly announced its existence on 4 April 2014, when masked members of the group took to the streets of Derna, a city of 80,000 on the Mediterranean coast about 150 miles east of Benghazi. Wearing military uniforms, driving pickup trucks, and brandishing rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns, and antiaircraft cannons, they declared that they would be the city's new security force and would institute Shari'a.

MSSI began to conduct hisba (accountability) within Derna, essentially calling individuals to account for their "non-Islamic" behaviour, sometimes through vigilantism. The group also instituted hudoud (criminal punishments under Shari'a), going so far as to perform a Taliban-esque public execution at a football stadium on 18 August.

Photo shows 'Islamic Police' written on the car

The group is employing ISIS iconography, most notably the group's black flag. MSSI also released a statement on 22 June showing its support for the Islamic State and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: "It is incumbent on us to support this oppressed Islamic State that is taken as an enemy by those near and those far, among the kuffar (infidels) or the munafeqin (hypocrites) or those with marda al-nafous (deceased souls) alike."

The statement continued: "fa-dawlat al-Islam baqiyah (so the Islamic State shall remain) by the will of God because whatever is for God lasts, and what is for other than Him falls apart."