By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 May 2018
Ayman al-Zawahiri (AFP)
Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a speech today, the ninth edition of his “Brief Messages To A Victorious Ummah”. A transcript of the speech, entitled “Tel Aviv Is Also the Land of Muslims”, evidently timed for the movement of the U.S. Embassy in Israel tomorrow, was released by al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab Media enterprise and is reproduced below. Continue reading
A version of this article was published in CapX
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) and James Snell on 8 May 2018
The Barzeh chemical weapons facility in Damascus, Syria, demolished by U.S. cruise missiles on 14 April 2018 (image source)
The United States and its allies, Britain and France, launched over 100 missiles at the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in the early hours of 14 April. This was retaliation for the regime’s use of poison gas in the town of Douma, east of the capital, Damascus, exactly a week earlier, which massacred at least 43 people and wounded 500 more. The military strikes were an important signal and will likely be some deterrent against the future use of chemical weapons in Syria, but ultimately this was another missed opportunity by the West to meaningfully affect the course of the war. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 March 2018
A statement attributed to Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the official spokesman of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (AQM), was released on 15 January 2006 that announced AQM was being merged with five other Salafi insurgent groups to create the Mujahideen Shura Council (al-Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen). A translation of the statement is produced below.
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
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 March 2018
Devastation in Aleppo (image source)
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the Syrian revolution. A movement that began with peaceful street protests calling for reform and—after the government responded with lethal violence—the downfall of the dictator, descended into war that has to this point cost the lives of at least 500,000 people and displaced nearly twelve million others—more than half of Syria’s pre-war population.
In any strategic sense the rebellion has been defeated—it is not able to overthrow Bashar al-Assad by force on its own—and its political cause is increasingly strained as the remnants of the armed opposition are increasingly co-opted by external actors, state and non-state. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 10 March 2018
The 122nd edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, was released on 9 March 2018 and contained an article, on page 3, suggesting that the use of takfir (excommunication) should be circumscribed. A rough translation is reproduced below. Continue reading
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]
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 February 2018
Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a speech on 15 February 2018, entitled, “Glad Tidings of Victory To Our People in Egypt”. Al-Zawahiri’s address was the eighth episode of the “Brief Messages To A Victorious Umma (Islamic community or nation)” series. Al-Zawahiri reiterated a theme al-Qaeda has used many times, by referring to the downfall of Muhammad Morsi, the first elected president of Egypt, who was deposed in a military coup d’état in July 2013. Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, had taken part in elections and had tried to find a compact with the non-Islamist sections of the Egyptian state and society, including the felul, the remnants of the fallen tyranny, notably in the military, police, bureaucracy, and judiciary, plus the media and business class. It had served Morsi no good: severely constrained in his authority, Morsi’s government unravelled quickly when these forces came together with foreign sponsors for a putsch. The old regime was restored in Egypt, with the support of Western countries, despite being more violent than ever. For al-Qaeda, the lesson of this episode is clear: without a violent revolution that creates tabula rasa, Islamist politics will not get a chance. An English-language transcript of al-Zawahiri’s speech was made available by al-Qaeda’s media apparatus and is reproduced below. Continue reading
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
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
Kyle Orton's Blog 