Tag Archives: al-Naba

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

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

The Islamic State’s Newsletter Prepares for the End of the Caliphate

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 9, 2016

First page of the 34th edition of the Islamic State newsletter, al-Naba

The Islamic State’s (IS) spokesman, Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani), gave a speech on 21 May that prepared the ground ideologically for the end of IS’s statelet and a return to the deserts where the organization survived after the surge-and-sahwa drove it from the urban zones of Iraq in 2007-08. Al-Naba, IS’s newsletter, is printed within the caliphate on Saturdays and distributed online on Tuesdays. Al-Naba’s 34th edition, published within the territories on 4 June and put on the internet on 7 June, echoed Falaha’s theme that the caliphate was a cause that would outlast the loss of territory since it was now embedded in the hearts of a generation of Muslims, and al-Naba also took a swipe at al-Qaeda and jihadi groups like Ahrar al-Sham that believe the path to an Islamist polity is bottom-up, through the building of popular consent. The Naba editorial is reproduced below with some important sections highlighted in bold.
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The Islamic State, Territory, and a Change of Tone

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 26, 2016

The Islamic State’s spokesman, Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani), released a speech on 21 May that prepared the ideological ground for the loss of territory by underlining something the Islamic State has long maintained: the caliphate is more a cause than a location. This was a departure, however, from the confident messaging that the Islamic State had emphasized since it announced the caliphate in June 2014. Just a month before Falaha’s speech, on 16 April, the twenty-seventh edition of al-Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, carried an editorial that was triumphalist about the march of the jihadists—despite the losses in the prior eight weeks, of Ramadi in early February, al-Shadadi later in February, Palmyra on 27 March, and al-Qaryatayn on 3 April. That editorial from al-Naba 27 is reproduced below. Continue reading

Islamic State Denounces Those Who Make Palestine the Foremost Muslim Cause

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

An article in the twenty-second edition of al-Naba, the Islamic State’s (IS) newsletter, released on 15 March 2016, explained why the group has not made fighting Israel a priority.

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Al-Qaeda Issues Strategic Guidelines for Jihadist Warfare

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 7, 2015

Al-Qaeda’s emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a document on 14 September 2013, entitled, Tawjihat ‘Amma lil-Amal al-Jihadi (توجيهات عامة للعمل الجهادي), variously translated as: “General Guidelines for the Work of Jihad” or “General Guidelines for Jihadist Action”. Al-Zawahiri’s document is reproduced below. Continue reading