Israeli Arab charged with joining jihad groups

Israel security agency Shin Bet Thursday announced that earlier this month it arrested an Israeli Arab on suspicion of joining Al Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria.

"Amin Ahmed Salah Snobar, 24, from the village of Yasif (in northern Israel), was arrested Jan 2, after returning from Syria, where he had stayed since July 2014," Xinhua news agency quoted the Shin Bet as saying in a statement.

Snobar, an Arab citizen of Israel, admitted in his interrogation that he had travelled to Syria, where he was trained with the Nusra Front and Ansar al-Sham, radical Islamic branches of the Al Qaeda.

On Thursday, he was indicted in an Israeli court for "joining an illegal organisation, taking part in forbidden military exercises, providing services for an illegal organisation and obstruction of justice", according to his charge sheet.

Israeli security forces have previously arrested Israeli citizens for travelling to Syria to join jihadi groups.

On Jan 4, the Shin Bet said it uncovered a three-member Islamic State-inspired cell in the Palestinian West Bank and two weeks later it announced the arrest of seven Arab Israeli citizens from Israel's northern Galilee region for setting up an additional Islamic State cell inside Israel.

Last year, Israel said it had information on 30 citizens who travelled to Syria to join jihadi groups.