By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 August 2022
Tag Archives: Islamic State
Reviewing the Mystery of Jihadi Ideologue Abdullah Azzam’s Assassination Three Decades Later
Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is Dead: Ramifications and Implications
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 August 2022

Osama bin Laden (L) sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri (R). Credit: Getty
United Nations Report Finds Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Reduced, But Reviving
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 July 2022

Islamic State in Palmyra, December 2016
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
The Unlearned Lesson of 7/7
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 July 2022
The Challenge for Western Intelligence in Talibanized Afghanistan
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 June 2022

A U.S. helicopter above the American Embassy in Kabul, 15 August 2021 | AP
Islamic State Spokesman Announces a New Global Campaign
Islamic State Wants the War Against Israel to Be Religious, Not Nationalist
Islamic State Attacks Israel for the First Time in Five Years
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 31 March 2022

Israeli security forces reacting to the terrorist attack in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, 29 March 2022 || Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said his country is “facing a new wave of terrorism” after five attacks in the last ten days have killed eleven people. The Islamic State (IS) has effectively admitted to carrying out two of the atrocities, the first time in five years the terrorist group has carried out attacks in the Jewish state. This hiatus, partly a reflection of the fact that, unlike some other Islamist extremists, IS does not make the anti-Israel cause a central plank of its propaganda, also reflects the relatively small inroads IS’s ideology has made to this point among Palestinian and Israeli Arabs. Whether this is now changing is unclear. Continue reading


