ISIS kills at least 235 Sufi Muslim worshipers in Egypt mosque

Ed Morrisey reports at Hot Air, 235 killed in an ISIS attack on a Sufi Mosque in Egypt.

Why target a Sufi mosque? Sufis are generally less temporal in their practice of Islam, and less political. In the last century, the Sufi practice has been eclipsed and marginalized by the emergence of Salafism and Wahhabism, strains which have produced ISIS and other terrorist groups. ISIS wouldn’t find many recruits among the Sufis, but presumably not too many existential threats either. The only rational motive would be to ensure that ISIS has no competitors in the practice of Islam within its territory so that it can impose its own insanity on Sinai residents, but even that seems like an odd choice of priorities when the Egyptian military is waging a war to wipe out ISIS. Perhaps ISIS thought the mosque was cooperating with the authorities?

The assault will almost certainly backfire on ISIS. There may be some popular unrest against Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the Sinai, but the slaughter of Sufis at prayer in a mosque will sever ISIS from that popular sentiment. We can hope that this exposure of their true nature will marginalize them even more and accelerate their destruction, in Egypt and elsewhere.

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