By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 16, 2014
In June, those of us who try to keep up with events in the Greater Middle East suffered a devastating blow when the Lebanese-American scholar Fouad Ajami passed away. Having broken with the orthodoxy of his generation of Arabs and his scholarly field, both represented in the person of Edward Said, Ajami provided insight into the Arab/Muslim world that restored the agency of that world. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 10, 2014
Ahrar a-Sham’s leader, Hassan Abboud
A mysterious explosion decapitated the Syrian rebel group Ahrar a-Sham on September 9. This could have major implications for the rebellion as a whole.
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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 6, 2014
Notification from Ibn Taymiyya Media Center’s Facebook page on the “martyrdom” of Gazan Muhammad Ahmed Qanitah (March 2013)
On August 11, Jamaat Ansar ad-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Bayt al-Maqdis (The Group of the Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem), released a “martyrdom” notice for “the mujahid brother” Mahmoud Nayef al-Qayrnawi (Abu al-Bara) of Gaza, who was killed by the regime on July 26 while fighting for the Islamic State (I.S.) at the Sha’ar gas field in Homs.
This is not the first Gazan jihadist killed in Syria. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 3, 2014
An opposition poster showing Assad and the Islamic State as two sides of the same coin
On August 25, Bashar al-Assad’s Foreign Minister, Walid al-Muallem, said: “Syria is ready for co-operation … to fight terrorism.” The week before Assad’s PR guru, Bouthaina Shaaban, told CNN that an “international coalition,” including Russia, China, America, and Europe, should intervene to defeat the “terrorists,” whom she says make up the rebellion in Syria.
Back in March I wrote a long post laying out the evidence that the Assad regime was deliberately empowering then-ISIS, now the Islamic State (IS), helping it destroy moderate rebels and even Salafist and Salafi-jihadist forces, with the intention of making-good on its propaganda line that the only opposition to the regime came from takfiris, which would frighten the population into taking shelter behind the State, seeing this madness as the only alternative, and would at the very least keep the West from intervening to support the uprising and might even draw the West in to help defeat the insurgency. These statements represent the culmination of that strategy. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 1, 2014
Pro-ISIS demonstration in Indonesia, March 16, 2014
Early last month, Indonesia announced:
“The government rejects and bans the teachings of [the Islamic State] from growing in Indonesia. It is not in line with State ideology, Pancasila, or the philosophy of kebhinekaan [diversity] under the unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.”
This was a welcome change of tune. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 27, 2014
Devastated International Airport in Tripoli, Aug. 23, 2014
With the Arabian Revolt sweeping the Middle East in early 2011, Libya’s turn came on February 17. Throwing off decades of fear, and not bothering with peaceful demonstrations as Tunisia and Egypt had to free themselves of tyranny, nor the Syrians who tried peaceful demonstrations for six entire months, the Libyans went straight to armed rebellion, and soon the city of Benghazi had been pried from the regime’s grip and become the de facto capital of the revolution. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 21, 2014
Some of the children killed by the Assad regime’s CW attack on Aug. 21, 2013
Can it really be twelve whole months since Bashar al-Assad gassed to death more than 1,400 people in a morning? I happened to be in London when the attack on the Damascus suburbs of Ghouta took place, exactly a year ago. London has become (in)famous recently for mass-protests that throw around the word “genocide”—against Israel’s (in my view ill-thought out) recent response to HAMAS’ rocket fire. London had no time for Syria’s grief: Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 20, 2014
James Foley
Last night the Islamic State released a revolting video in which they beheaded the American journalist James Foley, who has been missing since Thanksgiving Day (November 22) 2012. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 22, 2014
In April, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation produced a report, ‘Measuring Importance and Influence in Syrian Foreign Fighter Networks,’ which examined the use of social media in recruiting people to the jihadist groups, referring almost solely to Syria at that time, but which applies equally to Iraq. I have now gotten around to reading it and its findings are extremely interesting. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 15, 2014
A picture I took of Stari Most (Old Bridge) in Mostar, Bosnia, August 2011
Since the Syrian uprising began on March 15, 2011, there have been persistent echoes of Bosnia. There are some critics of the liberal interventionism specifically on the grounds that their worldview is so heavily coloured by Bosnia—and they make some valid points—but the analogy has been inescapable in Syria.
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