Tag Archives: Islamic State

Human Rights Abuses in Rojava and the Anti-ISIS War

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 March 2018

Guerrillas from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), the name the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) uses in Sinjar, Iraq, together with operatives from the People’s Defence Forces (HPG), the armed units of the PKK inside Turkey, holding a picture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. (image source)

The American-led Coalition’s partner against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), presents itself, ideologically and in terms of the governance structure it controls, in universalistic liberal and democratic terms, emphasizing ecological and feminist themes. The reality is that the SDF is under the politico-military control of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terrorist organization that has run a four-decade-long insurgency against Turkey. The PKK has brought some measure of stability to the areas it controls, but it continues to struggle for legitimacy and without locally-legitimate government IS and other jihadi-Salafists will find political room to operate. The PKK’s continued monopolization of power and abusive governance practices undermine the chances for the “Rojava” system to evolve into a long-term solution to the jihadist terrorists that have used Syrian territory to threaten the region and the wider world. Continue reading →

The United Nations Ceasefire for East Ghouta is a Farce

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 March 2018

Aftermath of an Assad regime bombardment in Hamouriyah, Eastern Ghouta, 9 January 9, 2018. Samir Tatin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The international community tried to impose a ceasefire in Syria on 24 February, passing resolution 2401 through the United Nations Security Council. The ceasefire never took hold and it is now clear it will not. This was inevitable.

Bashar al Assad’s regime, and the governments that support him in Iran and Russia, have repeatedly made use of ceasefires to sequence their war, taking advantage of the calm on some fronts to concentrate firepower on other areas. The only question is why Western diplomats gambled that this time would be any different. Continue reading →

Syria Continues to Unravel as External Powers Dominate

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 March 2018

Aftermath of a pro-Asad coalition bombing in Hamouria, in besieged Eastern Ghuta, near Damascus, 22 February 2018. (AFP)

In the summer and autumn of 2017, it was claimed Syria’s civil war was winding down, but the nearly seven-year conflict is nowhere near to finished, and recent events suggest it could even escalate. 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 →

Al-Qaeda Leader Profiles the Founder of the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 February 2018

Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) [picture via Getty], Muhammad Zaydan (Sayf al-Adel) [picture via Kronos Advisory LLC]

The military leader of al-Qaeda, Muhammad Saladin Zaydan (Sayf al-Adel), wrote a biography for Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), the Jordanian jihadist who founded what is now the Islamic State in Taliban Afghanistan in 1999. Zaydan wrote the biography in 2005 while in Iran, under the protection of the Islamic Republic, where he still is. The biography is reproduced below with some interesting and important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Coping With America’s Syria Policy, Israel Tries To Draw its Own Red Line

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Published at TRT World

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 February 2018

There was a serious escalation between Israel and Iran in Syria last week. This has been a long-time coming, an inevitable part of the contest for regional order that was obscured, and fuelled, by the narrow focus on the Islamic State (Daesh) and the war against its “caliphate”, particularly over the last year. Continue reading →

America’s Kurdish Allies in Syria Can’t Counter Iran

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Published at The Arab Weekly

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 11 February 2018

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the Trump administration’s vision for Syria, making clear that, contrary to the expectations of many, the United States will stay in Syria beyond the collapse of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) self-proclaimed caliphate, holding the jihadists at bay and establishing an order compatible with US interests.

Crucially, Tillerson—in a sharp break with US President Donald Trump’s predecessor—specified that countering Iranian influence within Syria was a central US objective. The problem with the strategy is that it seems to rely on repurposing the United States’ anti-ISIS Kurdish militia allies against the Iranian revolution. Continue reading →

The End of the Line for “The Beatles” of the Islamic State

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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 →

Islamic State Claims the Failed Paris Attacker: Salah Abdeslam

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 February 2018

Salah Abdeslam in prison, April 2016 (image source)

In the 118th edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s newsletter, there was an acknowledgment of Salah Abdeslam as a “brother”. Abdeslam is a Belgian citizen of Moroccan extraction, who acted as a logistician and facilitator for the 13 November 2015 massacre in Paris, though failed on the night to carry out his own part in the atrocity. Abdeslam is one of the few conspirators involved in the Paris attacks and the subsequent bombing in Brussels on 22 March 2016 who is still alive.[1] The significance of this is that IS has generally ignored its operatives if they end up being arrested, and Abdeslam is an acute case of this: he has never been acknowledged in IS’s propaganda since the Paris attack, notably being excluded from the twelfth issue of IS’s Dabiq magazine released on 18 November 2015 that named the Paris attackers and described how the operation was carried out. The Naba article is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Letter on Relations with the Islamic State and Iran

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 February 2018

Usama bin Ladin in an al-Qaeda video (image source: CNN)

A letter released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on 20 May 2015, the “Letter to Abu Abdallah al-Hajj”, was written by an al-Qaeda leader on 17 December 2007. The letter, reproduced below with some editions in transliteration and some important sections highlighted bold, is interesting for several reasons. Continue reading →