Category Archives: Jihadi Biographies

Abdallah Najem al-Jawari: A Key Early Leader of the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 28, 2017

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Abdallah Najem al-Jawari (Abu Azzam al-Iraqi) was something like the Islamic State (IS) movement’s first Finance Minister and a senior regional official, first in his native Anbar—he was from Fallujah—and later in Baghdad. Joining the group quickly after the collapse of the Saddam Husayn regime, al-Jawari was killed in 2005. Al-Jawari remains among those commemorated by IS as founders who set the stage for the current rise of “the State”.
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Mohamed Moumou: Islamic State’s Commander of the North

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 28, 2017

Mohamed Moumou (Abu Qaswara)

Mohamed Moumou (Abu Qaswara)

Mohamed Moumou, better-known as Abu Qaswara, was the Commander of the North for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), one of the most powerful military positions in the group, when he was killed by American forces in Mosul on 5 October 2008. Continue reading →

The Caliph’s First Deputy

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 28, 2017

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When Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) became the leader of the then-Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in May 2010, his deputy was man named Numan al-Zaydi, who went under various pseudonyms: Abu Ibrahim al-Ansari, Abu Sulayman al-Nasser, and Al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Sulayman. Al-Zaydi was killed in February 2011. Continue reading →

Profile of Abu Raghd: On the Origins of the Iraqi Jihad

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 28, 2017

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In his first speech as the then-Islamic State of Iraq’s (ISI’s) official spokesman in August 2011, Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani) referred to several of the group’s “leaders” who had been killed. Among them was Abu Raghd, whose biography provides a glimpse of the role regional states—specifically Saddam Husayn’s Iraq and Bashar al-Assad’s Syria—played in facilitating the birth of the Islamic State (IS). Continue reading →

The Islamic State’s First War Minister

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 25, 2017

One of the few existing pictures of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (Abdul Munim al-Badawi)

One of the few existing pictures of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (Abdul Munim al-Badawi)

Below is reproduced a very short biography for Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, sometimes called Abu Ayyub al-Masri, whose real name is Abdul Munim al-Badawi,[1] that circulated on pro-Islamic State forums. Al-Badawi took over leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) when its founder, Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), was killed on 7 June 2006. Al-Badawi then declared his allegiance to Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi) and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) on 10 November 2006, formally dissolving al-Qaeda on Iraqi territory, and becoming al-Zawi’s deputy. Abu Hamza had been in Iraq, including Baghdad, a year before Saddam Husayn was overthrown, and he and al-Zawi were killed together on 18 April 2010. Continue reading →

Jihadist Profile of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 23, 2017

A short biography of the “Caliph” of the Islamic State (IS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), was leaked online by the group in July 2013. A rough translation is reproduced below.

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The Seeds of the Islamic State in Saddam’s Iraq

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 22, 2017

Mustafa Ramdan Darwish (Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani)

Mustafa Ramdan Darwish (Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani)

After the leaders of the Islamic State die—usually killed by their foes—short biographies tend to be circulated on internet forums that favour the group. One such obituary—with the above picture—was disseminated for Mustafa Ramadan Darwish (Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani), and is reproduced below with some editions to transliteration and some interesting sections highlighted in bold. Darwish was the first leader of the Islamic State’s military portfolio and the second overall deputy (between September 2004 and early 2005) to the movement’s founder, Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). One of the most interesting parts of Darwish’s profile is its addition of details on the jihadi networks linked to al-Qaeda and the first generation of the Islamic State that were operating in Iraq in the final years of Saddam Husayn’s rule, a topic touched on in other biographies of Islamic State leaders. Continue reading →

The Coalition Strikes Down Al-Qaeda’s Leaders In Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 20, 2017

Muhsin al-Fadhli [top-left]; Abdul al-Sharikh (Sanafi an-Nasr) [bottom-left]; Radwan Nammous (Abu Firas al-Suri) [centre]; David Drugeon [top-right]; Rifai Taha (Abu Yasser al-Masri) [bottom-right]

Since September 2014, the U.S.-led Coalition has been targeting the leaders of Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, which has since rebranded as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). Below is a list of the Qaeda-linked individuals killed in Coalition air attacks since 2014. It will be updated and kept as a rolling record of the ongoing campaign. Continue reading →

The Islamic State’s Official Biography of the Caliph’s Deputy

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 18, 2016

Obituary for Abdurrahman al-Qaduli in the German version of Rumiya, 11 November 2016

Obituary for Abdurrahman al-Qaduli in the German version of Rumiya, 11 November 2016

The forty-first edition of the Islamic State’s newsletter, al-Naba, released within the territory of the caliphate on 30 July 2016 and released online on 2 August, and the forty-third edition (released 13 and 16 August), contained a two-part obituary for Abd al-Rahman al-Qaduli (Abu Ali al-Anbari), the caliph’s deputy when he was killed on 24 March. The obituaries, entitled, “The Devout Scholar and Mujahid Preacher: Shaykh Abu Ali al-Anbari”,[1] make clear that al-Qaduli was one of the most consequential jihadists in the history of the Islamic State movement. Below is a translation, with some interesting and/or important sections highlighted in bold. The biography resolves some long-standing mysteries, and some of the claims are dubious in light of other evidence we have: these issues, and other points of context and explanation, are in the footnotes. The subheadings are mine, added to signpost the narrative and break it up into more manageable chunks.
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The Islamic State’s Media Apparatus and its New Spokesman

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Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society.

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 16, 2016

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The Islamic State (IS) has named a new official spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. Abu Hassan is the fourth man to hold the position of spokesman within the IS movement, and the third since it declared statehood in 2006. Very little is known about Abu Hassan but assessing the history of IS’s media enterprise offers some hints about his profile. In this regard, a new paper by Dr. Craig Whiteside of the International Centre for Counter Terrorism Terrorism is instructive. Looking forward, examining Abu Hassan’s inaugural speech offers some clues about the direction IS’s messaging and behaviour will take now as its statelet shrinks under pressure from the U.S.-led Coalition. Continue reading →