Category Archives: Jihadi Output

Islamic State’s First Leader Denies He Has Been Captured, West Wonders If He Exists

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 January 2018

Iraqi soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division and U.S. Soldiers board a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter at Camp Ramadi, 15 Nov. 2015 (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel St. Pierre, U.S. Air Force)

The leader of the Islamic State (IS) when it was declared in October 2006 was Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi). Al-Zawi was killed in April 2010 and replaced in May 2010 by the current leader of the IS movement, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), who more explicitly embraced the title of “caliph”. On 12 May 2009, al-Zawi gave his seventeenth speech, entitled Umala Kadhabun (عملاء كذابون), which translates to something like “Lying Agents” or “Deceitful Spies”. The speech was released by IS’s Al-Furqan Media Productions and a translation was made by a pro-IS online outlet, The Jihadist Media Elite. The transcript is reproduced below. Continue reading →

The Official Declaration that Made Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Leader of the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 December 2017

The leader of the Islamic State, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), speaking at the Zengi Mosque in Mosul, 4 July 2014 // AP Images

The current leader of the Islamic State (IS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), was appointed as al-amir al-mu’mineen (the commander of the faithful or prince of the believers) on 16 May 2010, after his predecessor, Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), was killed on 18 April 2010 in the company of his deputy and “war minister”, Abdul Munim al-Badawi (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir). The official statement appointing al-Badri is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Islamic State Claims its Switch to Insurgency and Terrorism is Working

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 December 2017

Al-Naba 112, page 3

The 112th edition of the Islamic State’s newsletter, Al-Naba, released on 29 December 2017 contained an article on page 3, which reported that the reversion from statehood to insurgency was yielding results, particularly in the Diyala, Kirkuk, and Saladin provinces of Iraq. The article is reproduced below. Continue reading →

American Islamic State Jihadist Plotted to Bomb Trump’s First Presidents’ Day

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 December 2017

Robert Hester (image source)

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Robert Lorenzo Hester, Jr., 25, of Columbia, Missouri, on 21 February 2017, for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State (IS) and plotting an act of domestic terrorism. The plan had been an attack on 20 February, the first Presidents’ Day of the Donald Trump administration. Continue reading →

The Islamic State Says the Loss of the Caliphate Does Not Mean Defeat

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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 →

The First Islamic State Beheading Video

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 December 2017

The Islamic State (IS) triggered the war against its “caliphate” by disseminating footage of its jihadists beheading an American journalist, James Foley, on 19 August 2014. Over the next three months, five more Western hostages were decapitated on video. This was shocking to many, but it should not have been. IS began producing snuff videos like this a decade earlier.

The first video beheading by the Islamic State movement—known at the time as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad or JTJ (the Group of Monotheism and Holy War)—was released on 11 May 2004; the murderer in the video was IS’s founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; and he gave a brief statement to accompany his crime, later published under the title, “A Word in the Tape of the Beheading of Nicholas Berg (Kalima fi sharit nahr Nicholas Berg)”. Berg was an American civilian who went to Iraq as a freelance engineer.

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Islamic State Denies Targeting Jordan With Chemical Weapons (2004)

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 December 2017

The founder of what is now the Islamic State, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave a speech on 30 April 2004, entitled, “Blowing up the Intelligence Headquarters: A Response to the Lies of Jordanian Intelligence”.

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The Islamic State Responds to America Moving its Israeli Embassy to Jerusalem

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 9 December 2017

Al-Naba 109, 8 December 2017

The Islamic State responded to President Donald Trump’s announcement, on 6 December 2017, that the United States would move its Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with an editorial on page 3 of the 109th edition of Al-Naba on 8 December 2017. Below is a very rough translation. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Responds to Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy Move

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 December 2017

Responding to President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier today that he will move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, al-Qaeda have put out a statement that threatens retaliatory strikes against U.S. interests. Notably, al-Qaeda singles out Saudi Arabia as a government that has to be attacked for enabling Western operations against the jihadists. The statement is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham Gives Its Version of Its Own History and Ties to Al-Qaeda

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 December 2017

Abdurraheem Atun

Abd al-Rahim Atun (Abu Abdallah al-Shami), the leading cleric of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), released a statement on 29 November 2017, dated 13 October 2017, laying out the history of HTS, its evolution from Jabhat al-Nusra to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham to HTS, and its relationship with al-Qaeda. Atun’s statement was a response to a speech a day earlier by al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, which said that HTS remained bound to him and al-Qaeda through a bay’a (oath of allegiance) and HTS’s attempts to get out of this were un-lawful manipulations of the kind used by the Islamic State. Atun’s statement was translated by Al-Maqalaat and an edited version is posted below. Continue reading →