Tag Archives: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

ISIS Rejects Al-Qaeda’s Command To Return To Iraq

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 3, 2014

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The emir of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, released an audio message on 14 June 2013, “Baqiya fil-Iraq wa-Sham” (Remaining in Iraq and Syria),[1] rejecting al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s decision to send his group back to Iraq and to leave ISI’s Syrian branch, Jabhat al-Nusra, in Syria as al-Qaeda’s branch in that country. A translation of al-Baghdadi’s speech was released by his group and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Rules on the Dispute Between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 3, 2014

Ayman al-Zawahiri, September 2013, AFP/Getty Images

Ayman al-Zawahiri, September 2013, AFP/Getty Images

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the then-Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), released an audio statement on 8 April 2013 asserting his authority over Jabhat al-Nusra, which was set up as the Syrian wing of ISI. Al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, rejected al-Baghdadi’s hostile takeover on 10 April and swore allegiance—renewed, in his telling—to al-Qaeda. The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, ruled on this matter in a letter dated 23 May 2013, which was released to, and translated by, al-Jazeera, on 9 June 2013. Al-Zawahiri’s letter is reprinted below with some editions for clarity and some important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Jabhat al-Nusra Rejects the Islamic State of Iraq’s Takeover

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 2, 2014

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On 10 April 2013, Jabhat al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, put out a speech, published by al-Manara al-Bayda, entitled, “About the Fields of Syria”. In the speech, al-Jolani rejected the statement from thirty-six hours earlier by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which revealed officially that al-Nusra was a front-organization for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), and then al-Baghdadi asserted his authority publicly over al-Nusra, dissolving ISI and al-Nusra into a new group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This dispute would ultimately lead to ISIS being expelled from al-Qaeda’s network after it refused the orders of al-Qaeda’s leadership to return to Iraq and leave al-Nusra as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. A translation of this speech by jihadology.net is reproduced below with some minor editions for clarity and some interesting sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

The Announcement of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 2, 2014

Al-Qaeda expelled the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from its ranks on February 3, 2014. This was the culmination of a dispute that broke into the public eye with ISIS’s declaration in April 2013, an effort by ISIS’s emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to formally subsume the secret Syrian wing of the then-Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), known as Jabhat an-Nusra, under his own banner, and the rejection of both al-Nusra’s leadership and al-Qaeda’s to this move. In truth, the schism between ISIS and al-Qaeda has its roots all the way back to the beginning, when ISIS became al-Qaeda’s Iraqi branch, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (AQM), in 2004.

Below is the transcript of the audio address by al-Baghdadi, released by al-Furqan on 8 April 2013, entitled, “Give Good News to the Believers: The Declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”. Some transliterations have been altered, the syntax has been cleared up, and some interesting or important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →