By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 November 2022
Islamic State Announces That Caliph Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi Is Dead
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Tag Archives: Haji Bakr
The Islamic State is Taking Advantage of the Mess in Northern Syria
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 July 2022
The United States announced on 12 July that it had killed the Islamic State’s (ISIS) governor of Syria in a drone strike in the village of Galtan in the Jinderes district of the north-western Syrian province of Efrin on the border with Turkey. The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) statement identified the slain man as “Maher al-Agal”, though a more precise transliteration is Maher al-Aqal (ماهر العقال). Riding on the motorcycle alongside Al-Aqal when he was killed was a “senior ISIS official” with whom he was “closely associated”. This ISIS official was “seriously injured during the strike”, CENTCOM notes, adding that the Jinderes strike caused no civilian casualties. Continue reading
Former Head of Islamic State Executive Committee Speaks
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 23 May 2020
There is now, with various caveats, a general agreement that the Islamic State (IS) is on the upswing—in Iraq, particularly, but also in the Badiya, the desert regions of eastern Syria, and more recently in the south of Syria around Deraa. Still, there have been some recent notable gains against the terrorist group. Continue reading
Islamic State Profiles the Leadership
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 April 2019
Islamic State flag in front of the main gate of Saddam Husayn’s palace in Tikrit, 5 April 2015 // AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED SAWAF
A lengthy document—roughly sixty pages and 12,000 words—was published online on 21 February 2019 containing biographies of twenty-seven senior Islamic State (IS) officials, past and more recent. Those bios that are dated were written between October 2018 and the time of publication, with one exception that was written in the summer of 2018. The author claims to be an IS veteran. While longevity is difficult to prove, the fact that the author provides heretofore unseen images of some of the IS leaders suggests that at a minimum he is an IS operative. Continue reading
What Captured ISIS Jihadists Tell Us About the Group
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 December 2018
An Islamic State poster near al-Sukhna in the eastern Homs desert, Syria, August 2017 (source)
Over the past week, two members of the Islamic State (IS) have been arrested—a rarity in itself during the Coalition campaign against the group—and both in different ways give a glimpse of archetypes that have made up the organisation, from its inception to its expansion into Syria. Continue reading
The Islamic State’s Lessons-Learned About Insurgency
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 October 2018
Al-Naba 150
The 150th edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s (IS) weekly newsletter, was published on 4 October. IS focused on the progress of its guerrilla campaign in “Syraq” since the collapse of the caliphate, and gave a historical explanation of how it developed its insurgent methodology. Continue reading
The Capture of An ISIS Wife
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 21 July 2018
Seda Dudarkaeva (image source)
Turkish police announced on 19 July that they had arrested the wife of Tarkhan Batirashvili (Abu Umar al-Shishani), an Islamic State (IS) commander who was killed two years ago this month in Shirqat, Iraq. The capture brings to the fore a story stretching from senior levels of the Chechen Republic to the Levant. Continue reading
Rebel-Turned-Jihadist Saddam al-Jamal Reported Captured
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 10 May 2018
Saddam al-Jamal after his capture, 9 May 2018 (image source)
Saddam al-Jamal, born in al-Bukamal, a town near the Iraqi border in Syria’s the Deir Ezzor province, became a prominent example of a rebel against Bashar al-Asad’s regime who joined the Islamic State in 2013. It has now reported that al-Jamal has been arrested by the Iraqi government after an operation involving Turkey and the United States lured him into a trap. Continue reading
The End of the Line for “The Beatles” of the Islamic State
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 9 February 2018
El Shafee Elsheikh (image source) and Alexanda Kotey (image source)
Last night, The New York Times reported and Reuters confirmed that two British Islamic State (IS) jihadists, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, both of them designated terrorists by the United States, have been arrested in Syria. Kotey and Elsheikh, along with the late Mohammed Emwazi (Abu Muharib al-Muhajir) and Aine Davis, formed a four-man cell that has become known as “The Beatles”—hence Emwazi being near-universally known as “Jihadi John”—that guarded, abused, and murdered hostages for IS from before the “caliphate” was founded in 2014. Continue reading
The Official Declaration that Made Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Leader of the Islamic State
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 December 2017
The leader of the Islamic State, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), speaking at the Zengi Mosque in Mosul, 4 July 2014 // AP Images
The current leader of the Islamic State (IS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), was appointed as al-amir al-mu’mineen (the commander of the faithful or prince of the believers) on 16 May 2010, after his predecessor, Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), was killed on 18 April 2010 in the company of his deputy and “war minister”, Abdul Munim al-Badawi (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir). The official statement appointing al-Badri is reproduced below. Continue reading
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