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.
Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 13, 2014
The only official picture of Jabhat an-Nusra’s Emir, Abu Muhammad al-Golani, given out by the Iraqi government.
Syria’s rebellion was already fighting for its life, squeezed between the regime and the Islamic State (I.S.) in Aleppo, and on Friday night a new front appeared to open. Jabhat an-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, announced that it was forming an Islamic Emirate. According to a translation by Hassan Hassan, Nusra’s commander, Abu Muhammad al-Golani, said that they would now start implementing the shari’a “in the full sense of the word,” and “without compromise, leniency, ambiguity, or politeness.” Golani specifically says that Nusra will begin implementing the hudud, the harsh punishments like amputation for theft, which Nusra has very deliberately not done so far, saying war conditions suspended such punishments according to the Holy Law. At a more material level, it avoided garnering them bad press for savagery against the civilian population. Golani dismissed with contempt the secular rebels as “grovelling” to the West, and declared I.S.’s Caliphate “void” and its members ghulat (extremists).
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 12, 2014
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
The leader of the Islamic State (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made his first public appearance on July 4, 2014, delivering the khutbat al-jum’a (Friday prayer) at the Great Mosque, also known as the Nuri Mosque or Zangi Mosque, in Mosul. A translation of al-Baghdadi’s speech was made by INSITE Blog on Terrorism and Extremism and is reproduced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 9, 2014
The devastated city of Aleppo
As we approach the forty month mark for the Syrian uprising the situation is grimmer than it has ever been. Not just the casualties: more than 200,000 people dead. Not just the physical devastation and mass-displacement of more than a third of the country. But now in military terms the rebellion is on the defensive in a way it has not been since it erupted at the end of 2011, after more than six months of peaceful protests.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 2, 2014
In an audio message released on 1 July 2014, two days after the Islamic State announced the restoration of the caliphate, the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, laid out the Islamic State’s vision. The Islamic State put out an English version of the speech, which is reproduced below with some minor editions and some interesting sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 1, 2014
BBC map of ISIS’/Islamic State’s operational area
As we enter the fortieth month of Syria’s ordeal, and with the renegade Zarqawi’ite network in Iraq finally declaring that its virtual ministries are being uploaded into a fully restored Caliphate extending from Raqqa to Tikrit, the most depressing thought of all is that it did not have to be this way. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 29, 2014
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) announced that it had restored the caliphate on 29 June 2014. ISIS’s name was changed to simply the Islamic State (I.S.), and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, abandoned his kunya and proclaimed himself Caliph Ibrahim, his real name being Ibrahim al-Badri. The statement announcing that the areas I.S. rules in Syria and Iraq are now a caliphate, entitled “This Is The Promise of Allah [God],” was given by the group’s official spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, and was distributed by al-Hayat Media in Arabic, English, Russian, French, and German. The English version is reproduced below with some editions for transliteration and some interesting or important sections highlighted in bold. The speech lays out how the state should and will be governed—in other words, what I.S. envisions for its utopia. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 29, 2014
Jordan’s King Abdullah: The West’s closest Arab ally—but for how long?
It has been a rough fortnight for Jordan. After the fall of Mosul, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) announced an “unofficial” branch in Jordan and the Iraqi government surrendered its only legal border-crossing on the 110-mile frontier to tribal insurgents—opposed to ISIS, so far as can be told, but not without the danger they will be overwhelmed as has previously happened in areas like Fallujah, where the dam initially fell to local insurgents (albeit Ba’athists) and ISIS then pushed them out. Jordan has beefed up its border-defences but this has not stopped the speculation on whether Jordan, the “jewel in the ISIS crown,” will be the next domino to fall to the takfiris. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 20, 2014
The Peshmerga (those who face death): the people’s army of Iraqi Kurdistan
President Obama met with Congressional leaders on Wednesday to brief them on a “comprehensive approach” to Iraq, which for now will not include airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inside Iraq, “in part because”—as previously reported—”U.S. military officials lack sufficient information to hit targets that would shift momentum on the battlefield.” Obama has let this drag out so long that the Sahwa (Awakening), the Sunni Arabs who rose up against ISIS’s previous incarnations, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), are now either eliminated or mixed back in with ISIS and—crucially—other locally-focussed Sunni Islamist insurgent groups, notably the Sufi-Ba’athist Jaysh an-Naqshbandi. Defensible as this is, there are stronger reasons why the decision not to strike is correct.
Kyle Orton's Blog 