Monthly Archives: June 2017

The West’s Partners in Syria and the Risks to Turkey

2 Replies

Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 June 2017

Aftermath of a TAK bombing in central Istanbul, Turkey, 7 June 2016

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) issued a threat against Turkey on Tuesday, at the very moment the U.S.-led Coalition was announcing the commencement of the operation to evict the Islamic State (IS) from its Syrian capital, Raqqa, in alliance with the TAK’s mother organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). This underlines some of the challenges confronting the Coalition as a result of a half-decade of short-sighted counter-terrorism policy in Syria and a regional posture that tilted away from traditional allies. Continue reading →

Islamic State’s Attack in Iran Was a Bid For the Mantle of ‘Protector of the Sunnis’

1 Reply

Published at The Telegraph

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 June 2017

Armed terrorists stormed the Iranian parliament complex in Tehran (CREDIT: OMID VAHABZADEH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

In its choice of target and timing, ISIL has shown, once again, its skill in exploiting the rivalries of its enemies—setting them against one another to buy itself greater room for manoeuvre. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda-Linked Jihadi in Syria Comments on the Gulf Crisis

Leave a reply

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 June 2017

Abdallah al-Muhaysini

A major diplomatic crisis has erupted between the Gulf states, pitting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates against Qatar because of what these states claim is Qatar’s destabilizing behaviour.[1] On 5 June, Abdallah al-Muhaysini, identified last year by the U.S. government as a senior member of al-Qaeda in Syria, put out a message on Telegram effectively taking Qatar’s side, arguing that the campaign against Qatar was an American-orchestrated conspiracy against a government that had supported Muslims, i.e. Islamists.[2] The message is republished below with some syntactical and spelling edits. Continue reading →

The West’s Plan for Defeating the Islamic State in Syria is Fatally Flawed

Leave a reply

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 June 2017

A member of the YPG/PKK militia, Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The United States recently committed itself to arming the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known as the Y.P.G., to help evict the Islamic State from its Syrian stronghold, Raqqa. This decision is likely to prove deeply troublesome, risking the regional stability necessary for the lasting defeat of the Islamic State.

The Y.P.G. denies that it is, in effect, a wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., but the evidence is clear. The P.K.K., a Marxist-leaning Kurdish nationalist organization, was founded in Turkey in 1978, and took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. The group’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was expelled from Syria in 1998, when his old patron, the regime of Hafez al-Assad (Bashar’s father), came under military threat from Turkey. Mr. Ocalan was soon arrested by the Turks, and the tide of war turned against the P.K.K. Continue reading →

Jihadi Ally Calls for Official Opposition Government to Take Over Idlib

1 Reply

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 June 2017

Hussam al-Atrash was the most senior religious official of Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi and is now Deputy General Security Official of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadi-salafist insurgent group in north-western Syria whose relationship with al-Qaeda is much-contested. On 31 May, al-Atrash issued a statement arguing for a change of course for the insurgency in the “Greater Idlib” area.
Continue reading →