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
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 December 2017
Ak-Naba 110, page 3
The Islamic State newsletter, Al-Naba, had an article on page 3 of its 110th edition, released on 15 December, which mocked those who have declared that the Islamic State is finished, pointing out that it has survived such obituaries before. A rough translation of the article is produced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 December 2017
The founder of what is now the Islamic State, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave a speech on 30 April 2004, entitled, “Blowing up the Intelligence Headquarters: A Response to the Lies of Jordanian Intelligence”.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 9 December 2017
Al-Naba 109, 8 December 2017
The Islamic State responded to President Donald Trump’s announcement, on 6 December 2017, that the United States would move its Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with an editorial on page 3 of the 109th edition of Al-Naba on 8 December 2017. Below is a very rough translation. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 December 2017
Abdullah al-Faisal
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Abdullah Ibrahim al-Faisal (born: Trevor William Forrest), a Jamaican cleric who supports the Islamic State (IS) on 5 December. This was long overdue. Al-Faisal’s record of disseminating jihadist ideology, and influencing and/or interacting with terrorists, goes back several decades. And since 2014, al-Faisal has been one of IS’s influential English-language propagandist-recruiters. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 October 2017
The Iraqi Kurdish authorities arrested Mustafa Haji Muhammad Khan (Hassan Ghul) on 23 January 2004. Khan had been dispatched to Iraq by Nashwan Abd al-Baqi (Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi), one of the key military officials of al-Qaeda “central” (AQC), to function as AQC’s intermediary with Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), the founder of the Islamic State movement. Khan replaced Abdallah al-Kurdi, the first envoy sent by Abd al-Baqi. Al-Kurdi had failed to establish any footing to do his job effectively, but Khan, a battle-hardened jihadist from Baluchistan, earned a measure of respect from al-Khalayleh and facilitated a productive conversation between AQC and al-Khalayleh. Al-Khalayleh, possessed of a pathological anti-Shi’ism, wrote a seventeen-page memo to Usama bin Laden explaining his strategy to defeat the Americans by starting a total war between the sects in Iraq. That memo, in digital form, was given to Khan, and Khan had it in his possession when he was captured. A translation of the letter is given below with some interesting sections highlighted in bold.[1] Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 July 2017
A couple of months ago, the Islamic State revealed that one of its most senior officials in the crucial media department until his death in January 2017 was an American, Ahmad Abousamra, known by various kunyas, including Abu Sulayman al-Shami and Abu Maysara al-Shami. Looking around afterwards, I came across an article by Abousamra condemning Adam Gadahn, another American, who was part of the core leadership of Al-Qaeda—one of the handful of men around Usama bin Laden and then Ayman al-Zawahiri—until he was killed in January 2015.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 1, 2016
The fifteenth issue of the Islamic State’s English-language magazine, Dabiq, released on 31 July 2016 contained an essay, “By the Sword,” a brief polemic that defends the Islamic State’s brutality on the basis that it is conducted according to the Word of God—laying open claim to genocide and slavery so long as it is undertaken by Muslims and not disbelievers, saying they would have felt no need to have apologized for the atomic bombing of Japan or the use of defoliants in Vietnam and would have been more thorough-going in the extermination of Native Americans and Jews, since these things are vouchsafed by the Creator. The Islamic State contends that the Jewish and Christian religious contain the same prescriptions for the forcible implementation of the Holy Law that the Qur’an does, but these monotheists have lapsed and pay more attention to the edicts of the United Nations. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 2, 2016
An article in the twenty-second edition of al-Naba, the Islamic State’s (IS) newsletter, released on 15 March 2016, explained why the group has not made fighting Israel a priority.
Kyle Orton's Blog 