Al-Qaeda in Syria Denounces America, Claims to Be the Revolution

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 13, 2017

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham fighter engaging the Assad regime

Michael Ratney, who has been the United States Special Envoy for Syria since July 2015, wrote a public letter , released on 11 March 2017, which labelled all constituent parts of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as members of al-Qaeda and therefore as terrorists.[1] On 12 March, HTS’s “Administration of Political Affairs”—its newly-minted political office, perhaps evidence of an evolution in HTS’s thinking about an endgame in Syria—issued a statement in reply, which is reproduced below.
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Outcome Uncertain as American Involvement in Syria Deepens

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 10, 2017

American ground forces are getting more deeply entangled in Syria as the offensive to push the Islamic State (IS) out of its de facto capital city, Raqqa, approaches. It remains unclear exactly which actors in Syria these troops will be assisting, though there are more and more indications that their mission will redound to the benefit of the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his allies, Iran and Russia. Continue reading →

The Islamic State’s Shadow War With Israel

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 5, 2017

Al-Naba 70, released on 2 March 2017, p. 15. The caption under the picture says: “The apostate Husayn Duwayhi al-Bareeki”

In the 70th edition of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), entitled, “The Liquidation of Spies for the Jewish State” (tasfiya juwasees lil-dawla al-yahudiya), which did include a description of IS’s Wilayat Sinai having eliminated an Israeli spy network, but also included more general information about the IS security structure in Egypt. Continue reading →

The West Helped the Assad Regime and Its Allies Take Palmyra

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 4, 2017

For the second March in a row, the Islamic State (IS) was driven from control of Palmyra this week in an operation led by Iranian ground forces and supported by Russian airstrikes—the actual instruments of power that remain to the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The primary interest this time is that the United States-led international anti-IS coalition and its Operation INHERENT RESOLVE (OIR) provided crucial assistance to the regime. Continue reading →

Jihadi Cleric Calls for Al-Qaeda’s Leader in Syria To Be Put on Trial

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 3, 2017

Abdul Munim Halima (Abu Basir al-Tartusi), a Syrian previously based in London, is an important jihadi-salafist scholar, who has diverged from some aspects of jihadism since the 7 July 2005 massacre on the London subway system by al-Qaeda. As the Syrian rebellion has progressed, Halima has departed even further from key jihadi ideologues that continue to take al-Qaeda’s line and support its branch in the country, Jabhat al-Nusra, which formed as a splinter from the Islamic State and has now rebranded itself as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Halima has long expressed the view that al-Nusra and its leader, Ahmad al-Shara (Abu Muhammad al-Jolani), were insufficiently focused on Syrian needs. Halima tended to favour Ahrar al-Sham, an insurgent group with deep links to al-Qaeda, but which has presented its jihadism within a more nationalistic framework. Halima retains sway over Islamist opinion, especially in Syria, so his fatwa today calling for al-Shara to be put on trial for crimes against the Syrian revolution is noteworthy. Halima was especially exercised that the recent attempts by al-Shara to separate his organization from al-Qaeda came so long—and so unconvincingly—after so many had begged him for so long to carry out this policy. Instead, says Halima, al-Shara bullied and dominated the Syrian insurgency in the north under the flag of al-Qaeda, providing the regime of Bashar al-Assad with an alibi for his barbaric conduct in suppressing the insurrection. This is one of several “crimes” Halima says al-Shara should face a court for. The fatwa is reproduced below with some editions to transliteration and syntax.
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Al-Qaeda’s Deputy Killed in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 27, 2017

abu-al-khayr-car-killed-in

Last night it was reported that al-Qaeda’s overall deputy, Abu Khayr al-Masri, had been killed by the U.S.-led Coalition in Syria with a drone strike. This was soon seemingly confirmed by pro-Qaeda channels, and Abu al-Khayr was said to have been buried this morning. Though the emphasis on targeting jihadist leaders can be overdone, the demise of Abu al-Khayr is an important development, and one with significance beyond itself.

Abu al-Khayr’s career is demonstrative of a few interesting trends within the Jihadi-Salafist movement, primary among them the willingness of the Iranian revolution to work with the Sunni jihadists, al-Qaeda very much included, when it suits its purposes, particularly in undermining Western interests. Abu al-Khayr also elucidates the changed nature of al-Qaeda, where the “centre” (AQC) could now be said to be more in Syria than the Afghanistan-Pakistan, and where al-Qaeda operates both an overt and covert presence to try to secure a durable foothold in the Levant, which might in time be a base for attacks against the West, currently suspended only for tactical reasons. Continue reading →

Islamic State Has Been Defeated in Al-Bab, But America Needs a New Direction in Syria

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Published at The International Business Times and subsequently discussed on the IBTimes podcast

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 27, 2017

A burnt-out vehicle on a destroyed street in al-Bab on 23 February 2017 (Nazeer al-Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)

Turkey intervened in Syria in August 2016 with Operation Euphrates Shield (OES), which involved special forces, some regular troops, and the mobilisation of Syrian rebels to clear its border of terrorist threats by pushing ISIS (the Islamic State) away from the frontier and preventing the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) creating a state-let on its border that could be used as a harbour and launch-pad for attacks inside Turkey.

To secure this mission, on 13 November 2016 OES began an assault on al-Bab in the eastern countryside of Aleppo Province, just 15 miles from Turkey’s border and ISIS’ last major urban centre in Syria outside its capital, Raqqa. Some 102 days of combat later, on 23 February, al-Bab fell. What happens next could determine the course of the war as Turkey competes with the PKK to be the U.S.-led Coalition’s partner in clearing ISIS from Raqqa. Continue reading →

U.S. Treasury Targets Al-Qaeda in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 24, 2017

The U.S. Treasury on Thursday imposed sanctions on two senior operatives associated with al-Qaeda in Syria (AQS). This is undoubtedly part of the escalating campaign against AQS. The two men are interesting on their own account, however, and give a glimpse at some of the things that have shaped jihadism across the Fertile Crescent. In the one case, that of Iyad Nazmi Salih Khalil, better-known as Iyad al-Tubaysi or Abu Julaybib, this history begins with the earliest days of the Islamic State (IS), from which AQS splintered, in Iraq before Saddam Husayn was deposed. The other case, that of Bassam al-Hasri (Abu Umar al-Filistini), highlights the events at the outset of the Syrian uprising, when the regime of Bashar al-Assad set in motion its strategic plan to militarize and radicalize the nascent insurgency in order to present the population and the world a binary choice—the dictator or a terrorist takeover. Continue reading →

The Need for Caution in Releasing Guantanamo Inmates

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Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society.

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 21, 2017

Ronald Fiddler (Abu Zakariya al-Britani)

Ronald Fiddler (Abu Zakariya al-Britani)

Since the offensive against Mosul, the Iraqi capital of the Islamic State (IS), began five months ago, IS has expended a high number of lives quite deliberately in suicide attacks. One of the suicide-attacks conducted on 20 February 2017, a car bombing against an Iraqi base, was by Abu Zakariya al-Britani, a British citizen now identified as Ronald Fiddler from Manchester. In 2002, Fiddler, then calling himself Jamal Udeen al-Harith, was sent to Guantanamo Bay, before being released in 2004 while still protesting his innocence. After suing the British government over his imprisonment, Fiddler received a substantial cash settlement in order to avoid compromising state secrets. Fiddler’s demise invites some revisiting of widely-held assumptions surrounding Guantanamo. Continue reading →

Testimony of an American Fighter with the Syrian Kurds

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 18, 2017

American YPG volunteer, “Brennan”

In November 2016, an American, named only as “Brennan,” who had fought alongside the Kurdish militia in Syria, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), spoke to “Kraut and Tea,” a German atheist YouTuber. Brennan provided some interesting details on the governance methods, ideology, and capabilities of the YPG. Continue reading →