Tag Archives: Algeria

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 →

A Syrian Rebel Commander Accuses Iran of Helping The Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 25, 2014

Is there anything Hajj Qassem can't do?

Is there anything Hajji Qassem can’t do?

Middle East Monitor Online (MEMO) has published an article by Yvonne Ridley that consists of an interview with Hassan Abboud just a few hours before he and most of the Ahrar a-Sham leadership were killed on September 9. The accusations Ridley records Abboud levelling against the Islamic State (I.S.) are deeply upsetting to the conventional view of the Syrian conflict. Continue reading →

Provocation and the Islamic State: Why Assad Strengthened the Jihadists

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

An opposition poster showing Assad and the Islamic State as two sides of the same coin

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 →

Do Not Let The Murder of James Foley Distract From The Assad Regime

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 20, 2014

James Foley

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 →

What Would Islamic Theocracy Look Like If It Came To The West? Quite A Lot Like Tower Hamlets.

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 23, 2014

Lutfur Rahman

With attention presently focused on the London borough of Tower Hamlets over allegations of massive voting fraud and other corruptions in yesterday’s Mayoral Election and the scenes of policemen having to guard British Election booths because of the high likelihood that the State authorities in this area will falsify the result, it seems like a good moment to have a look how it got to this. Continue reading →

Algeria’s ‘Years of Blood’: Not Quite What They Seem

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

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Antar Zouabri, who became leader of the GIA in the summer of 1996

In December 1991, the Algerian government—the military regime in power since the French were expelled—gave in to public pressure, which had already turned sanguinary, and allowed an election. It was quite clear that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a fundamentalist party, would emerge victorious. To forestall the institution of a theocracy, in January 1992, the military launched a coup and shut down the final rounds of the election. A civil war erupted in which the jihadists sought to overpower the secular, if dictatorial, government. By the late 1990s, the jihadists’ savagery had meant their campaign had run aground; the vital centre in Algeria swallowed its misgivings and sought shelter behind the State. By 2002, the civil war was declared over: the jihadist revolt had been beaten.

That is the official story.

Continue reading →