By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 23 February 2023

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 21 August 2022

It was on this day in 1968, fifty-four years ago, that the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, one of its colonies in the “Warsaw Pact”, which had embarked on a program of liberalising reforms. The Czech leadership did not intend to depart from the socialist path, merely to soften its edges—and ran into the brute fact that this was not possible. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 August 2022

Osama bin Laden (L) sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri (R). Credit: Getty
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 July 2022
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 October 2021
This article was originally published at European Eye on Radicalization

Sami Jassim al-Jaburi (Haji Hamid) | IMAGE SOURCE
Mustafa al-Khadhemi, the Iraqi Prime Minister, announced on the morning of 11 October that the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) had arrested Sami Jassim al-Jaburi (Haji Hamid), the effective finance emir of the Islamic State (ISIS), in “a complex external operation”. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 October 2021

Since the takeover of Afghanistan by a coalition of jihadists controlled by Pakistan, the one neighbouring state to vocally object is Tajikistan, which has extended support to the remaining anti-Taliban resistance. This is a reprise of Tajikistan’s role in the 1990s, when it provided a rear base to the United Islamic Front (UIF) or “Northern Alliance”, and was the gateway for the states supporting the UIF, notably Pakistan’s great rival India. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 10 September 2021

Members of a Taliban Red Unit in the Alingar District of Laghman province in Afghanistan, 2020 || Image credit: Jim Huylebroek, The New York Times
The restoration of the Taliban-Qaeda regime in Afghanistan is a terrorism threat to the whole world, but Britain has some unique vulnerabilities, as MI5 Director general Ken McCallum warned today. Continue reading