More Police Are No Substitute for Tackling Islamist Ideology

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 5, 2016

Published at Newsweek

In the past two years, and especially over the last month, the Islamic State militant group has launched a coordinated campaign of terrorism in Europe. Among these recent attacks was the murder of 84 people in Nice by a man who ploughed a truck into Bastille Day crowds, and the brutal killing of a priest in Normandy when two young men stormed a church.

Now, the number of armed police in London, and ultimately across the U.K., is set to increase significantly. These additional forces will patrol landmarks and other areas where large numbers of people congregate. An attack in Britain is “highly likely … a case of when, not if,” according to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. A stabbing in the British capital Wednesday is not currently being treated as an extremist act but has underlined the perceived need for an increased police presence. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Rebrands, Marches on in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 2, 2016

First ever picture of the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), Ahmad al-Shara (Abu Muhammad al-Jolani), 28 July 2016

First ever picture of the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), Ahmad al-Shara (Abu Muhammad al-Jolani), 28 July 2016

The leader of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmad al-Shara, ostensibly broke the link between his organization and al-Qaeda last week. This is another stage in al-Qaeda’s long-term strategy of embedding itself into local societies so that it can more effectively reshape the faith and shield itself from the international community. Continue reading →

Islamic State Claims It Follows God’s Law, Jews and Christians Do Not

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 1, 2016
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The fifteenth issue of the Islamic State’s English-language magazine, Dabiq, released on 31 July 2016 contained an essay, “By the Sword,” a brief polemic that defends the Islamic State’s brutality on the basis that it is conducted according to the Word of God—laying open claim to genocide and slavery so long as it is undertaken by Muslims and not disbelievers, saying they would have felt no need to have apologized for the atomic bombing of Japan or the use of defoliants in Vietnam and would have been more thorough-going in the extermination of Native Americans and Jews, since these things are vouchsafed by the Creator. The Islamic State contends that the Jewish and Christian religious contain the same prescriptions for the forcible implementation of the Holy Law that the Qur’an does, but these monotheists have lapsed and pay more attention to the edicts of the United Nations. Continue reading →

The Islamic State Explains Why It Hates The West

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 1, 2016

dabiq-15-3

The Islamic State (IS) published its fifteenth edition of ‘Dabiq,’ its English-language magazine, on 31 July 2016. The magazine was entitled, “Break the Cross”. The magazine contained two important articles outlining why IS hates and fights against the West. The most important article, an unsigned piece by an IS operative, simply titled, “Why We Hate You and Why We Fight You”. The second, “How I Came to Islam,” was written by Umm Khalid al-Finlandiyyah, a female Finnish foreign fighter who has joined IS. Those articles are reproduced below with some editions to transliteration and some interesting sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

What We Know About The Islamic State’s Attack in Nice

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 30, 2016

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel on the promenade in Nice on 14 July 2016

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel on the promenade in Nice on 14 July 2016

On 14 July 2016, Bastille Day, a lorry zig-zagged along the seafront Promenade des Anglais in Nice for two kilometres (1.25 miles) during a fireworks display. Eighty-four people, including ten children, were murdered instantly and two-hundred-plus wounded, nearly two-dozen critically. Below is a compilation of the evidence so far, which indicates that the killer was a part of a substantial network acting on behalf of the Islamic State, though there is not yet any evidence of a direct contact with the terrorist state headquartered in Raqqa. Continue reading →

Governing the Caliphate: Profiles of Islamic State Leaders

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 29, 2016

A new report by me for the Henry Jackson Society (accessible here) is out today. It looks at those governing the statelet held by the Islamic State in parts of Syria and Iraq, and those who are orchestrating IS’s foreign terrorist attacks, including in Europe. The wave of attacks over Ramadan has been described as a “lone wolf” epidemic by many, but IS is coordinating this mayhem through its Amn al-Kharji, foreign intelligence service, and the report looks at who staffs this institution and the dangers of writing-off these attacks as the work of lone radicals with no connection to each other or IS.  Continue reading →

‘Lone Wolf’ Attacks in Europe Are Nothing of the Sort

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 29, 2016

Published in The Telegraph

Muhammad Riyad (Wurzburg) [top left], Mohammed Daleel (Ansbach) [top right], Adel Kermiche (Normandy) [bottom left], Abdelmalik Petitjean (Normandy) [bottom right]

Since early 2014, at the latest, the Islamic State (IS) has been plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. There has been a tendency, including during the wave of attacks in the last month in Europe, to favour the “lone wolf” explanation for IS-claimed terrorist attacks, where the killer’s only connection to IS is to be “inspired” by their online propaganda, but in reality the institutions of the caliphate stand behind this campaign.

The infiltration of IS’s enemies for the purposes of espionage and terrorism, whether this is government-held areas of Iraq and Syria or Western Europe, is led by Amn al-Kharji, the foreign service within IS’s sophisticated intelligence apparatus, as explained in a new report by The Henry Jackson Society. Continue reading →

Jabhat al-Nusra Claims to Dissociate From Al-Qaeda

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 28, 2016

Graphic released with the speech of Ahmad Hassan (Abu Khayr al-Masri) about Jabhat al-Nusra and relations with al-Qaeda

Graphic released with the speech of Ahmad Hassan (Abu Khayr al-Masri) about Jabhat al-Nusra and relations with al-Qaeda

In advance of Jabhat al-Nusra rebranding as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS) on 28 July 2016, there were carefully coordinated media releases between al-Qaeda “central” (AQC) and al-Nusra. First, al-Manara al-Bayda (The White Minaret), al-Nusra’s media arm, released a six-minute audio speech by Abdullah Muhammad Rajab Abd al-Rahman (Abu Khayr al-Masri),[1] identified as the deputy to al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri; then there was the first ever picture of al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmad Husayn al-Shara, and shortly thereafter a video of al-Shara ostensibly severing ties with al-Qaeda; and finally the founding document for JFS was published. Continue reading →

Long-Term Islamic State Operative Carries Out Suicide Bombing in Ansbach

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 27, 2016

The German police secure the area surrounding the crime scene after the suicide attack in Ansbach

The German police secure the area surrounding the crime scene after the suicide attack in Ansbach

In Ansbach in Bavaria State, southern Germany, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a wine bar not far from the Ansbach Open music festival during the final concert around 22:10 on the evening of 24 July 2016. Fifteen people were injured, three gravely. The suicide-killer, who had wandered around the entranceway with a backpack, was soon identified as a twenty-seven-year-old Syrian refugee, Mohammad Daleel, who came to Germany in 2014. Daleel “lived in an old hotel that was converted into a refugee shelter”. Daleel had been rejected as an asylum seeker in Germany, where he was known to the authorities for petty criminality. Daleel was scheduled to be deported to Bulgaria within thirty days, though the deportation had been temporarily suspended while Daleel underwent a medical evaluation, and had been placed in a psychiatric clinic. Daleel had allegedly tried to commit suicide twice before the bombing. Continue reading →

A Rebel Crime and Western Lessons in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 24, 2016

Abdullah Issa on the back of a truck with Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi fighters who will soon behead him

Abdullah Issa on the back of a truck with Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi fighters who will soon behead him

A horrifying video emerged on Tuesday of a teenage boy being beheaded. This had occurred the day before around Handarat in Aleppo, northern Syria. The boy had been fighting for Liwa al-Quds, a militia of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, composed mostly of Palestinians from the Nayrab camp and likely also from the unofficial settlement at Ayn al-Tal near Handarat. The rebel group that took him captive and then murdered him was Harakat Nooradeen al-Zengi, which had previously received support, including TOW anti-tank missiles, from the United States’ covert program run by the Central Intelligence Agency, though that support ended nearly a year ago. The episode is important in itself, and underlines some trends, namely al-Zengi’s evolution and the dynamics underway in northern Syria, where the U.S. is preparing to intensify its de facto policy of collaborating pro-Assad coalition against Jihadi-Salafist terrorist groups, which are strengthening al-Qaeda. Continue reading →