The Coalition Removes Senior Islamic State Leaders, Military Officials, and External Terror Operatives

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 November 2017

The United States Department of Defence announced on 14 November that four more important operatives of the Islamic State (IS) had been killed in targeted airstrikes by the U.S.-led anti-IS Coalition. “The removal of these key terrorists disrupts ISIS’ weapons engineering activities and their ability to recruit and train terrorists,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “It also reduces their ability to plan and conduct terrorist attacks, both within Syria and Iraq and abroad.” Continue reading →

The Controversial End of the Islamic State in Raqqa

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 14 November 2017

IS jihadists arriving south of Deir Ezzor city, September 2017

A deal was made between the “Syrian Democratic Forces,” the U.S.-led Coalition’s “partner force” in Syria that is wholly dominated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and the Islamic State (IS), which ostensibly evacuated the remnants of the IS jihadists—said to be between 300 and 500 militants, plus 400 “hostages” (i.e. women and children)—from Raqqa by 15 October. The U.S.-led Coalition said at the time, “do not condone” the deal, but the Coalition acknowledged that its PKK partner had to make these tactical calls, and there was a lot of local pressure from local tribal leaders to reach this deal given the devastation visited on the city. It now transpires, however, that this deal was the worst of all worlds: the Coalition ruined the city in its efforts to overcome IS’s tactical adaptations to the air campaign, and then allowed a scandalous number of IS jihadists to escape. Continue reading →

Profile of an Islamic State Media Emir: Abu Zahra al-Issawi

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 November 2017

The forty-fifth edition of the Islamic State’s “Distinguished Martyrs” series, published by al-Furqan Media in Rajab 1431 (June/July 2010), profiled Abu Zahra al-Issawi, the media emir or information minister of the organization between some point after July 2007, when Khalid al-Mashadani (Abu Zayd al-Mashadani) was arrested, and some point before September 2009, when Ahmad al-Ta’i was announced as holding the position. [UPDATE: Al-Ta’i turned out to be Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, and his real name was Wael al-Ta’i.] Continue reading →

The Third Deputy of the Islamic State: Muhammad Khalaf Shakar

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 November 2017

Muhammad Shakar had, according to his martyr biography, “become influenced by Salafism in 1997-98 while serving as a part of [Saddam] Hussein’s Special Republican Guard”.[1] Quitting the military and returning to his home in Mosul, Shakar was harassed by the regime until he went to join Ansar al-Islam in the mountains of Kurdistan.[2]

Shakar, known as Abu Talha al-Ansari or Abu Talha al-Mawsuli, joined the predecessor to Islamic State either just before or just after Saddam fell, and he was arrested in Mosul on 14 June 2005. Continue reading →

Hamza bin Ladin Presents Al-Qaeda As the Guardian of Revolution

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 9 November 2017

Hamza bin Ladin on his wedding day in Tehran, under the protection of the Quds Force, the expeditionary unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that attempts to spread the Iranian revolution through subversion and terrorism

Hamza bin Ladin, whose profile is being deliberately raised within al-Qaeda, released a speech on 7 November 2017, “The Fighter Against Invaders And The Inciter of Rebellion Against Tyrants”, an English transcript of which was produced by As-Sahab Media, and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Islamic State and Female Fighters

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 November 2017

The Khansaa Brigade, the all-female Islamic State espionage network and morality enforcement police, based in Raqqa city (image source)

A debate has been ongoing among analysts since the summer about the view the Islamic State (IS) has of mujahidat (female fighters). IS now seems to have settled the matter in its newsletter, Al-Naba. Continue reading →

The Islamic State Claims the Manhattan Terror Attack

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 November 2017

The Islamic State’s claim for the 31 Oct. 2017 Manhattan terror attack is on the right. (Al-Naba 140, 2 Nov. 2017, page 3.)

The Islamic State released the 140th edition of its newsletter, Al-Naba, on 2 November 2017, which contained an article claiming that the perpetrator of the vehicular ramming terrorist attack in New York city on Halloween night, Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant to the United States, was one of the caliphate’s “soldiers”. The Islamic State also repeated its much-contested claim that Stephen Paddock, whom it refers to as “Abu Abd al-Bir al-Amriki”, was motivated by its call when carrying out the massacre at the concert in Las Vegas on 1 October. The article is reproduced below.
Continue reading →

The Syrian Regime’s Funding of the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 October 2017

Bashar al-Assad, Hussam al-Katerji, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi)

Reuters reported on 11 October that Hussam al-Katerji, a member of Bashar al-Asad’s Syrian regime, has been engaged in trading wheat with the Islamic State (IS), helping supply the terrorists with resources to run their statelet and threaten the security of Syria’s neighbours and the wider world. This pattern of behaviour from the Asad regime—holding itself out as a counterterrorism partner, while it bolsters terrorist organizations—is well-established, and has its origins in the regime’s survival strategy: to destroy all acceptable opposition forces and make the Syrian war a binary contest between the dictatorship and terrorists. Continue reading →

Further Evidence of Trade Between Assad and the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 October 2017

Watan FM, one of the free media outlets that sprang up in the early days of the Syrian uprising in 2011 and which has since migrated to Turkey, reported on 17 March 2017 about the trade between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State. The article is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Clerics Put Forward an Initiative to Unite Jihadists in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 27 October 2017

It was announced on 25 October that a unity proposal had been formulated to resolve the dispute in Syria between Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), its former command organization, al-Qaeda, and the jihadi splinter faction from Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Ahrar, which has broken between the two. The initiative was backed by major jihadi-salafist clerics, Issam al-Barqawi (Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi) and Umar Othman (Abu Qatada al-Filistini), and invited the support of all jihadi “scholars”. The text of the proposal, translated by Al-Maqalaat, is reproduced below, with some editions to transliteration and syntax. Continue reading →