Book Review: Carter Malkasian, ‘Illusions of Victory’, Oxford University Press, 2017. pp. 280.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 July 2018
Carter Malkasian sets out in Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State to upend the conventional understanding of the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) movement, known at the time as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), in Anbar province of western Iraq. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 25 May 2018
Al-Naba 132
The Islamic State released the 132nd edition of Al-Naba, its newsletter, on 18 May. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 26 April 2018
A-Naba 125
The Islamic State (IS) formally turned from statehood to insurgency last October. The 125th edition of Al-Naba, IS’s weekly newsletter, released on 29 March 2018, contained a number of indicators that the jihadists’ guerrilla warfare is gaining considerable steam—and that IS thinks it should gain more. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 January 2018
Islamic State, Wilayat al-Baraka, fighting north of al-Jafra with PKK, 14 October 2017
The Islamic State’s (IS) tactical behaviour, particularly its attitude toward the holding of territory, has become a centrally important matter recently with the destruction of the “caliphate” and IS’s reversion to insurgency. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 11 January 2018
Al-Naba 43, page 3
The Islamic State (IS) brought out the forty-third edition of Al-Naba, its newsletter, on 16 August 2016. On page 3 was an article that made reference to IS’s insurgent activities, which had already begun in areas it had lost. A rough copy is reproduced below.
At that time this article was published, IS was on the verge of losing Minbij, and had issued statements in May 2016 and June saying that the loss of the caliphate would not be the end of the group. By early 2017, IS’s insurgent operations were visibly mature, long before the formal declaration in October 2017 that IS was giving up its statelet and recommencing all-out insurgency. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 December 2017
Ak-Naba 110, page 3
The Islamic State newsletter, Al-Naba, had an article on page 3 of its 110th edition, released on 15 December, which mocked those who have declared that the Islamic State is finished, pointing out that it has survived such obituaries before. A rough translation of the article is produced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 November 2017
Al-Naba 101, page 8
In the 101st edition of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba (page 8-9), released on 12 October 2017, the organisation gave some fascinating details about how they responded to the “defeat” inflicted on them in 2007-08 by the American surge and the tribal Sahwa (Awakening) forces. The article describes how IS switched wholly to insurgent-terrorist tactics, dismantling its conventional fighting units and even its sniper teams in March 2008, and training in hit-and-run bombings. The leadership at that time, the emir Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi) and his deputy, the “first minister” and the “war minister” Abdul Munim al-Badawi (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir), encountered some initial scepticism, but the rank-and-file soon came on board when they saw its effectiveness. IS says that it is time to return to this form of warfare. In short, IS marked a switch in al-Naba 101 entirely from the statehood and governance phase of its revolutionary warfare, back into insurgency mode. The article is reproduced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 October 2017
Hassan Hassan wrote in The National on 20 September 2017 about the Islamic State (IS) having issued a public statement on its adaptions to the U.S.-led Coalition air campaign against it in Iraq and Syria. This statement appeared on pages eight and nine of the ninety-seventh issue of Al-Naba, IS’s newsletter, on 14 September. A rough translation is republished below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 July 2017
Screenshots from the bay’a-martyrdom videos of: Riaz Khan Ahmadzai (Muhammad Riyad), Anis Amri, Mohammad Daleel (source)
The Islamic State (IS) has escalated a campaign of global terrorism over the past few years, exactly as it was losing overt control of territory. In 2016, IS consolidated a model of guiding and claiming attacks in the West and elsewhere via is media channel, Amaq. The outlines of this have long been known. Now there is significant new detail thanks to a four part reporting series in the German newspaper BILD by Björn Stritzel, who contacted Amaq and posed over many months—in consultation with Germany security agencies—as a potential terrorist. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 29 June 2017
The spokesman of the Islamic State (IS), Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, made his third speech on 12 June 2017, entitled, “And When The Believers Saw The Companies”. Abu Hassan’s first speech was in December 2016 and his second was in April 2017. The primary message of Abu Hassan’s speech was for IS’s troops to resist to the end in what is left of the caliphate’s grip on its Iraqi capital Mosul as that offensive, begun last October, draws to a close, and to hold similarly firm as the operation to evict IS from its Syrian capital Raqqa, launched on 6 June, gets underway. The main editorial of Al-Naba 84 a few days before Abu Hassan spoke laid out IS’s intention, somewhat contrary to its general practice, to resist fiercely in Raqqa. Abu Hassan continues the messaging, consistent since the U.S.-led coalition began its countermeasures against IS, that “patience” will lead to victory. IS has not wavered from this strategy in more than ten years, and it is showing signs of bearing fruit already, a trendline likely to continue unless there is a change of Coalition strategy. In crude, practical terms, Abu Hassan means to say that the terrorism and guerrilla campaign will continue after IS is uprooted from the urban areas.
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