Tag Archives: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Saddam Hussein’s Regime Produced The Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 21, 2015

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Having presented the evidence that Saddam Hussein Islamized his foreign policy and then Islamized his regime, above all with the Islamic Faith Campaign, beginning in June 1993 that tried to fuse Ba’athism with Salafism, encouraging (and keeping under surveillance) a religious revival in Iraq that redounded to the benefit of the regime’s legitimacy and support, I wanted to look at what this history means for Iraq and the wider region now.

I pointed out in October that the “military strength” of the Islamic State (ISIS) “comes from the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s military-intelligence apparatus and the Caucasus’ Salafi-jihadists.” Continue reading →

Syria’s Jihad Comes Home To The United States

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 16, 2015

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud

A United States Federal grand jury has charged Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud (a.k.a. Ayanle), a 23-year-old from Columbus, with one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to terrorists, one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization (both counts punishable by up to fifteen years in prison each), and one count of making false statements to the FBI in an indictment returned in the Southern District of Ohio (which carries a sentence of eight years).

Some of the press reports have been a little muddled, but the indictment is available to read and provides some intriguing details. Continue reading →

A Red Line For Iran’s Imperialism In Yemen

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 27, 2015

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Late in the day on March 25, a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen with airstrikes against the Houthis.

The Iranian-backed Houthis (a.k.a. Ansar Allah) took over Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September, and forced the resignation of the Saudi-backed Yemeni ruler, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, in January. Hadi escaped house arrested in Sanaa and retreated to Aden with the remnants of his regime. On March 21, the Houthis had called for a “general mobilisation” and by the next day had pushed south toward Aden. The Houthis said they were combatting “terrorist forces”. As in Syria, Iran’s allied forces cast a narrative where there were no Sunni moderates, nobody with whom a deal might be struck.

Hadi’s predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose resignation was compelled in early 2012 after the “Arab Spring,” stands accused not only by Hadi but by the United States of supporting the Houthis. Continue reading →

ISIS: America’s Alliance with Iran is Hampering the Fight Against Terror

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 7, 20151

Published at Left Foot Forward

Book Review: ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (2015) Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan

ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, is brilliantly easy to read. Concise yet thorough the book charts the history of a group, “[a]t once sensationalized and underestimated,” that is simultaneously a terrorist organisation, mafia, conventional army, sophisticated intelligence-gathering apparatus, propaganda machine and the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime which controls an area the size of Britain in the heart of the Middle East. Continue reading →

The Islamic State Officially Expands to Afghanistan

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 26 January 2015

The spokesman of the Islamic State (ISIS), Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, gave a speech today entitled, “Say, ‘Die in Your Rage’,” which is drawn from a Surah of the Qur’an [3:119]. The main announcement from Adnani is the acceptance of another wilayat (province), i.e. foreign branch of IS, this time in Afghanistan, led by Hafiz Saeed Khan, a former Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or “Pakistani Taliban” commander who broke away and formed a pro-ISIS faction in October. This follows the first declaration on this matter a month ago by IS’s caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which accepted “provinces” from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria. Adnani went on to make the foredoomed request that the Afghan jihadists “abandon disunity and factionalism” in order to join ISIS. Continue reading →

Jihadi Cleric Makes the Case for the Islamic State Leader as Caliph

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 8, 2015

Soon after the public emergence inside Syria of the then-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the spring of 2013, a treatise was published by the Bahraini jihadi scholar, Turki al-Binali, which is to date the only official biography of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and piloted the idea that he was the caliph, i.e. the leader of Muslims worldwide. Al-Binali’s document, “Stretch [Out] the Hands to Give Allegiance to Al-Baghdadi”,[1] first published on August 5, 2013, would be amplified throughout late 2014 after ISIS declared that it had restored the caliphate last June and Abu Bakr took the mantle of caliph. An English translation of the document was produced on December 21, 2014, by someone using the name Ubaidullah ibn Adam al-Ibrahim on the pro-Islamic State Ansar al-Khilafa blog. It is reproduced below, with some editions for syntax and transliteration, to preserve it for study. Continue reading →

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Second Speech as Islamic State Leader

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 29, 2014

The current leader of the Islamic State (IS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), released his first “proper” speech on July 21, 2012. But this was, in fact, his second public statement: Al-Badri had mourned Usama bin Laden in an audio message released on 9 May 2011 and vowed “blood for blood and destruction for destruction”. The 2012 speech, entitled, “Allah Will Not Allow Except That His Light Should Be Perfected”, was released by Al-Furqan Media and an English transcript—reproduced below—was issued by Fursan al-Balagh Media. Some key parts are highlighted in bold.
Continue reading →

ISIS’s Leader Calls for the Syrian Rebels to Cease Attacking the Jihadists

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 6, 2014

The leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, gave an untitled speech on January 19, 2014. It was a response to the Syrian rebellion having launched a full-scale offensive against ISIS on January 3, 2014, which had driven them from large swathes of territory in northern Syria and was ongoing at the time. The rebel offensive continued for six months—until Mosul fell to ISIS in June, and the captured resources were fed into eastern Syria, breaking the rebels. Al-Baghdadi struck a relatively conciliatory note, though did accompany this with threats, should the rebels continue resisting the jihadists. A translation of the speech was made by Pieter Van Ostaeyen, and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Are Syria’s Rebels Being Sacrificed To Al-Qaeda For Obama’s Détente With Iran?

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 6, 2014

SRF leader Jamal Marouf

SRF leader Jamal Marouf

What a disaster. With American and coalition jets in the air overhead, ostensibly to do battle with Salafi-jihadists, al-Qaeda has been allowed to push rebel brigades the United States purports to support out of almost all of Idlib Province. Continue reading →

Russian Intelligence and the War In Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 21, 2014

Abu Omar a-Shishani, while in Georgian military, now as I.S. leader in Syria/Iraq

Abu Omar a-Shishani, while in Georgian military, now as I.S. leader in Syria/Iraq

The Syrian rebellion, on Oct. 5, took over areas of Tel al-Hara, near Nawa, a major town twenty miles north of Deraa City, which is a strategic gateway to the road networks that keep the Assad regime alive in Deraa Province. The videos (1/2/3) showed FSA-branded rebels like Liwa al-Furqan and Jabhat Thuwar as-Suriya (the Syrian Revolutionaries’ Front) in control. Jabhat an-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, had an important presence, but it was not dominant. So this seemed like good news on its own terms.

Two days later the plot thickened when a further video was uploaded to YouTube, showing the rebels touring a captured regime intelligence station in Tel al-Hara: Continue reading →