By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 24 January 2019
CCTV footage of the Londonderry bombing, 19 January 2019 [source]
The Foreign Dimension to the Irish Republican Army
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Category Archives: British Domestic Terrorism
Is Britain Cracking Down on PKK Terrorist Activity?
Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 December 2017
Pro-PKK demonstrators in Frankfurt, Germany, 18 March 2017, REUTERS / Ralph Orlowski
The BBC reported yesterday that on 7 December the Metropolitan Police Service arrested four people—two 17-year-old boys, a 38-year-old woman, and a 50-year-old woman—were arrested in the Haringey area of north London as part of a probe into terrorist fundraising, through money laundering and fraud. The terrorist group at issue is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and those arrested are believed to have contributed to the PKK’s finances through sale and distribution of one of the PKK’s most important propaganda instruments, the Yeni Ozgur Politika (New Free Politics) newspaper. Time will tell if this is a one-off or the beginning of a serious and long-overdue attempt to curtail the PKK’s propaganda-recruitment activity and fundraising in the West. Continue reading
Another Product of “Londonistan”: Abdullah Ibrahim al-Faisal
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 December 2017
Abdullah al-Faisal
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Abdullah Ibrahim al-Faisal (born: Trevor William Forrest), a Jamaican cleric who supports the Islamic State (IS) on 5 December. This was long overdue. Al-Faisal’s record of disseminating jihadist ideology, and influencing and/or interacting with terrorists, goes back several decades. And since 2014, al-Faisal has been one of IS’s influential English-language propagandist-recruiters. Continue reading
Islamic State Claims it Caused the Evacuation at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Reiterates Claim of Parsons Green Attack
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 23 September 2017
Al-Naba 98, 22 September 2017
The ninety-eighth edition of the Islamic State’s (IS) newsletter, Al-Naba, was released on 22 September 2017. This Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, was evacuated on 17 September due to a bomb scare, and later declared to be a “false alarm”. This edition of Naba claims that an IS operative in fact planted a bomb, causing the chaos at Charles de Gaulle. Al-Naba 98 also contained a further acknowledgement of the “bucket bombing” at Parsons Green tube station in London, Britain, which took place on the morning 15 September 2017. Continue reading
The Islamic State’s Fourth Attack in Britain in 2017
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 September 2017
“Bucket bomb” on the Parsons Green trube (image source)
At 8:20 on 15 September 2017, a bomb detonated in a rear carriage of a tube train at Parsons Green station in London. The passengers on the packed, rush-hour train described a flash “fireball” that travelled down the train. Thirty people were injured, some horribly burned, but there were no fatalities and the main explosive clearly did not detonate. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS). Continue reading
The Islamic State’s Newsletter on the London Bridge Attack and Melbourne Siege
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 June 2017
Al-Naba 84
The eighty-forth edition of Al-Naba (The News), released by the Islamic State on 8 June 2017, included a section on the terrorist attacks in Britain, on London Bridge, on 3 June, and in Australia, the siege of the apartment block in Melbourne, on 5 June. Continue reading
Islamic State Newsletter Says Manchester Bomber Was a “Soldier of the Caliphate”
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 25 May 2017
Article about Manchester Arena suicide-killer Salman Abedi, page 2 of Al-Naba 82
The Islamic State (IS) released the eighty-second edition of its newsletter, Al-Naba, on 25 May 2017. The first article in Al-Naba 82 was about the suicide attack on the Manchester Arena on 22 May, which IS claimed the next day. The article in Al-Naba provided very few details about the murderer, Salman Abedi, or IS’s role in the attack, mostly gloating over the allegedly panicky reaction of the British state. Continue reading
Jihadist Terror Remains a Significant Problem for Britain
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 May 2017
Khalid Mohamed Omar Ali being arrested (image source)
Over the past week, the authorities have disrupted two potential terrorist attacks in London. This follows the Westminster Bridge attack in March, which was claimed by the Islamic State (IS). Britain has been one of the most targeted states by IS’s campaign of global terror, and these latest incidents—whether or not they transpire to be IS-linked—underline the scale of the terrorist threat to Britain. Security forces prevented thirteen attacks in the U.K. between June 2013 and March 2017, and at any one time there are five-hundred live investigations into potential terrorist incidents, with 3,000 Britons believed to be capable of committing an act of domestic terrorism. Continue reading
Don’t Assume the Westminster Terrorist is a ‘Lone Wolf’
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 April 2017
The 22 March attack outside Westminster by Khalid Masood is the most significant act of Islamist terrorism since the 7 July 2005 bombing by al-Qaeda of the London public transport system. Masood’s attack highlights a number of historic trends in British jihadism and starkly poses the question of the extent of IS’s penetration of the United Kingdom. Continue reading
Islamic State Claims the Westminster Attack
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 31 March 2017
Al-Naba 74, page 12, 30 March 2017
The seventy-fourth edition of al-Naba, the Islamic State’s newsletter, released online on 30 March 2017, reiterated the terrorist group’s 23 March claim via Amaq of the 22 March Westminster attack by Khalid Masood (born: Adrian Russell Ajao). The brief article is reproduced below.
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