Tag Archives: Hashd al-Shabi

HAMAS Planned for the Massacre, Torture, and Hostage-Taking on October 7 More Than a Year in Advance

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 October 2025

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A Note on Iran’s Control of Iraq

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 October 2024

A debate has been ongoing since the emergence of al-Hashd al-Shabi in Iraq in 2014 about the extent of Iran’s control over the militia conglomerate. In truth, there was never really much doubt.

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Jihadist “Forever Wars” Don’t End Because Western Troops Are Withdrawn

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 March 2023

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The World Cup in Qatar and “Personal Freedom” Make the Islamic State Very Angry

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 December 2022

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Islamic State Profiles a Young Iraqi Jihadist Killed During the Battle of Mosul

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 September 2022

Abu al-Zubayr al-Askari || Al-Naba 352, p. 9

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Islamic State Dismisses the West’s “False Victory” Against It

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 January 2022

Al-Naba 317, page 3

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Islamic State’s War With Christianity in Africa

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 January 2022

Al-Naba 320

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Just What Is Iran Capable Of?

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 June 2021

Massive explosion at Khojir in eastern Tehran lights up the night sky, 25 June 2021 [image source]

The clerical regime in Iran, born in terrorism and dedicated to its export, has carried out atrocities across the world since 1979. The Islamic Republic has made Israel and Jews a special target of its murderous Revolution, and this has naturally incurred what one might call “resistance” from the Israeli government. What is notable in recent times is how the global ledger is shaping up, albeit while the strategic regional situation is quite different. The Israelis have delivered blow after blow to Iran, many of them within Iran, including removing senior officials, and the Iranian theocracy has proven unable to reply because its terrorist infrastructure is so badly infiltrated and just sheerly incompetent. Continue reading

Gaza is Just One Front in Iran’s Regional War

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 27 May 2021

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system [left] activates over southern Israel against incoming HAMAS rockets [right], 14 May 2021

Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary-general of Hizballah, the Lebanese division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), gave an interesting interview to Hizballah’s Al-Nour radio station on 22 May, explaining IRGC/Hizballah’s vision for what it had achieved with the recent war in Gaza. Qassem added to a large body of evidence about Iran’s extensive role in the war, a lot of it supplied directly by the combatant parties themselves. Not only did the clerical regime in Iran supply the material basis for the Islamists’ war against Israel this month; they provided much of the ideological framework, too. Continue reading

What Can We Learn From Iran’s Foreign Minister?

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 May 2021

Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif, December 2020, during an interview with Lotfullah Najafizada of TOLO News

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif, took part in an oral history project intended for internal use by the clerical dictatorship in February and on 25 April the audio was leaked—so goes the story. There is every reason to think this is a controlled leak, which is to say an information operation or a piece of strategic messaging—more pejoratively, propaganda or disinformation: choose the terminology as you will—intended to assist the Iranian theocracy as it works through its negotiations on the nuclear file with the new American administration of President Joe Biden. Still, there are some insights from this episode, as with an interview Zarif gave—focused on Afghanistan—in December. Continue reading