Monthly Archives: May 2014

Al-Qaeda Provides Evidence ISIS Was Its Iraqi Branch, Calls For It To Return

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 3, 2014

As-Sabah Media released a video on 2 May 2014 that contained a speech from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, responding to the ferocious statement by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which denied that ISIS was ever under al-Qaeda’s command and thus al-Zawahiri’s expulsion of ISIS from al-Qaeda in February was a meaningless gesture. Al-Zawahiri presents a compelling case to the contrary, drawing on documents sent by ISIS’s leaders, past and present, to al-Qaeda, some of which are public—taken in the raid that killed Usama bin Laden. Al-Zawahiri concludes with a call for ISIS to return to the fold, to accept al-Zawahiri’s order that ISIS leave Syria and return to Iraq—even if they think it is unjust—for the sake of jihadi unity and avoiding the shedding of Muslim blood.  The speech is entitled, “Testimony to Preserve the Blood of the Mujahideen in Syria” (Shahada li-Haqn Dima al-Mujahideen bil-Sham). A rough translation is given below with some important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Removing Assad Is The Only Way To Disarm His Regime Of Its WMD

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 3, 2014

These rows of murdered children are just some of the 1,400 people massacred with sarin on the morning of Aug. 21, 2013 by the Assad regime

President Obama said on April 28, in Manila: “we’re getting chemical weapons out of Syria without having initiated a strike.” This was by way of defending not launching airstrikes to punish the Assad regime after the massive gas attack near Damascus last August. Put aside the clear evidence that the regime has simply switched the using chlorine gas. This seemed dubious on its own terms. Under the deal orchestrated by the Russians, Assad became a partner in disarmament; as soon as that process comes to an end, the Western interest in keeping Assad’s regime in place is eliminated. And so it proved.
Continue reading →

Obama’s Training of Syrian Rebels: Another Exercise in Public-Relations

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 2, 2014

Bashar az-Zoubi, leader of Liwa al-Yarmouk, the biggest brigade in Deraa and one of the biggest on the Southern Front. He is one of the main people President Obama’s ostensible switch to focussing on the south of Syria is supposed to benefit.

At the beginning of last month, the first solid evidence was presented of Syrian insurgents being trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. Continue reading →

Why Climate Change Had No Impact on the Syrian Uprising

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 1, 2014

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JOHN WREFORD/DEMOTIX/CORBIS

It is inevitable that when a complex situation erupts everybody will try to map their own specialities onto it. At the present time, where environmentalism is such a primary Western concern, it was perhaps always likely that the Syrian war would attract those determined to see this menace in every corner. It has happened before, with Darfur Continue reading →