Tag Archives: Ibrahim al-Badri

Islamic State Response to the Leaking of Abu Sulayman al-Utaybi’s Testimony

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 November 2018

On 24 November 2013, the day after Al-Qaeda leaked the full testimony of Abu Sulayman al-Utaybi, the chief judge of the Islamic State (IS) who made various charges against the leadership after he defected in 2007, a pro-IS response was issued, signed by one Mu’awiya al-Qahtani, entitled, “Refutation of the Letter Attributed to the Judge Abu Sulayman al-Utaybi—May God Accept Him—with Evidence and Proofs”. A translation of Al-Qahtani’s document is given below.

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Testimony of Islamic State Defector Abu Sulayman al-Utaybi

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 November 2018

Abu Sulayman al-Utaybi, a Saudi who abandoned his Islamic studies to journey to Iraq in 2006, was appointed chief judge, of the Islamic State movement in March 2007, six months after the Statehood declaration. Between April and June 2007, Abu Sulayman released some public sermons—the picture above is from the first—for what was then called the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which had publicly dissolved its bonds to Al-Qaeda when it became a “State” in October 2006, while in fact retaining its bay’a (oath of allegiance) to Al-Qaeda in private.

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Islamic State Leader Urges Patience as the Path to Victory

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 August 2018

The leader of the Islamic State (IS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), released a nearly 55-minute audio statement today, his first statement for eleven months, which in turn came eleven months after the prior speech. This is al-Badri’s thirteenth speech since he became leader of the IS movement in May 2010 and the eighth since IS declared the restoration of the caliphate in June 2014. The title of today’s speech, “Give Glad Tidings to the Patient”, is drawn from a verse of the Qur’an that promises “glad [or good] tidings” in Paradise to those who remain steadfast on the path of faith in life, which is very much the theme al-Badri sticks to. Continue reading →

The Death of the Caliph’s Son

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 July 2018

Message on the death of Hudayfa al-Badri, released by the Islamic State, 3 July 2018

At around 21:00 on 3 July 2018, in the middle of England’s World Cup match with Colombia, news broke that a son of Islamic State’s leader, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), had been killed in Homs, western Syria. Continue reading →

Rebel-Turned-Jihadist Saddam al-Jamal Reported Captured

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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 →

Islamic State Official Spokesman Proclaims “the State” in 2006

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 March 2018

A video statement was put out on 15 October 2006 by the official spokesman of what was then called the Mujahideen Shura Council (al-Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen or MSM), the entity in which Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had nominally subsumed itself in January 2006, announcing the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The MSM spokesman, Muharib al-Jubouri, seen above, who had not been in the job long—the first AQI/MSM spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, had been killed a few months earlier—was now the ISI spokesman,[1] and his speech made clear that a coalition of tribesmen and insurgents announced by MSM three days earlier, the Alliance of the Scented Ones (Hilf al-Mutayibeen), was also incorporated in this “State”. The transcript of Muharib’s speech, entitled (unimaginatively enough), “Announcement on the Establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq”, is translated below.

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Profile: First Spokesman of the Islamic State Movement

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 March 2018

The predecessor organization to the Islamic State (IS), the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), used to run a “Prominent Martyrs” or “Distinguished Martyrs” series: essentially obituaries for important members of the IS movement. In the forty-sixth edition, on 18 August 2010, ISI profiled Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the first official spokesman and the deputy of the Media Department until he was killed in 2006. A translation of Abu Maysara’s biography was issued by Ansar al-Mujahideen forum and is reproduced below with some minor editions for transliteration and some interesting points highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

A New Branch of Al-Qaeda Emerges in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 March 2018

Hurras al-Deen logo

A new jihadi faction announced its formation in Syria on 27 February 2018: Tanzim Hurras al-Deen,[1] which translates as The Organization for the Guardians of the Religion or the Religious Guardians’ Organization. Hurras al-Deen is, unofficially, the re-emergence of a branch of al-Qaeda in Syria after the schism between al-Qaeda “central” and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The first statement from Hurras al-Deen was released via Telegram and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Islamic State’s First Leader Denies He Has Been Captured, West Wonders If He Exists

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 January 2018

Iraqi soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division and U.S. Soldiers board a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter at Camp Ramadi, 15 Nov. 2015 (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel St. Pierre, U.S. Air Force)

The leader of the Islamic State (IS) when it was declared in October 2006 was Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi). Al-Zawi was killed in April 2010 and replaced in May 2010 by the current leader of the IS movement, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), who more explicitly embraced the title of “caliph”. On 12 May 2009, al-Zawi gave his seventeenth speech, entitled Umala Kadhabun (عملاء كذابون), which translates to something like “Lying Agents” or “Deceitful Spies”. The speech was released by IS’s Al-Furqan Media Productions and a translation was made by a pro-IS online outlet, The Jihadist Media Elite. The transcript is reproduced below. Continue reading →

The Continuing Syrian Efforts to Resist Jihadism

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 January 2018

Opposition protests against Jabhat al-Nusra, Marat al-Numan, March 2016

A recording was leaked on 28 November of a Syrian cleric, Abdul Halim al-Atwan, giving a lecture to Syrians in Idlib, condemning the current leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the descendant of al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch Jabhat al-Nusra, for having distorted and destroyed the Syrian rebellion by infecting it with extremism and intra-insurgent fighting. Al-Atwan, the uncle of HTS leading shar’i Abd al-Rahim Atun (Abu Abdallah al-Shami), notes that al-Nusra intruded into Syria as a wing of the Islamic State in 2011. This is only a small demonstration of the continued resistance among Syria’s armed opposition to being co-opted by the HTS jihadists. Continue reading →