By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 April 2017
The 22 March attack outside Westminster by Khalid Masood is the most significant act of Islamist terrorism since the 7 July 2005 bombing by al-Qaeda of the London public transport system. Masood’s attack highlights a number of historic trends in British jihadism and starkly poses the question of the extent of IS’s penetration of the United Kingdom. Continue reading
Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 21, 2017
Ronald Fiddler (Abu Zakariya al-Britani)
Since the offensive against Mosul, the Iraqi capital of the Islamic State (IS), began five months ago, IS has expended a high number of lives quite deliberately in suicide attacks. One of the suicide-attacks conducted on 20 February 2017, a car bombing against an Iraqi base, was by Abu Zakariya al-Britani, a British citizen now identified as Ronald Fiddler from Manchester. In 2002, Fiddler, then calling himself Jamal Udeen al-Harith, was sent to Guantanamo Bay, before being released in 2004 while still protesting his innocence. After suing the British government over his imprisonment, Fiddler received a substantial cash settlement in order to avoid compromising state secrets. Fiddler’s demise invites some revisiting of widely-held assumptions surrounding Guantanamo. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 12, 2017
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [left] and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi [right]
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 28, 2017
Mohamed Moumou (Abu Qaswara)
Mohamed Moumou, better-known as Abu Qaswara, was the Commander of the North for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), one of the most powerful military positions in the group, when he was killed by American forces in Mosul on 5 October 2008. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 28, 2017
When Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) became the leader of the then-Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in May 2010, his deputy was man named Numan al-Zaydi, who went under various pseudonyms: Abu Ibrahim al-Ansari, Abu Sulayman al-Nasser, and Al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Sulayman. Al-Zaydi was killed in February 2011. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 27, 2017
The Islamic State’s June 2014 declaration that the areas it controlled were the restored “Caliphate” was seen by many as a novel development. In fact, “the State” was declared in October 2006. The next month, the predecessor of the Islamic State (IS), Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (AQM), dissolved itself, and a month after that the claim to statehood was expanded upon—while being wilfully ambiguous about the caliphal pretensions—in the first speech by the then-emir, Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi). Similarly, though confusion remains on the point, it was in this same period that the symbol of the Islamic State, its black flag, was established.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 25, 2017
One of the few existing pictures of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (Abdul Munim al-Badawi)
Below is reproduced a very short biography for Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, sometimes called Abu Ayyub al-Masri, whose real name is Abdul Munim al-Badawi,[1] that circulated on pro-Islamic State forums. Al-Badawi took over leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) when its founder, Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), was killed on 7 June 2006. Al-Badawi then declared his allegiance to Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi) and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) on 10 November 2006, formally dissolving al-Qaeda on Iraqi territory, and becoming al-Zawi’s deputy. Abu Hamza had been in Iraq, including Baghdad, a year before Saddam Husayn was overthrown, and he and al-Zawi were killed together on 18 April 2010. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 21, 2017
The first proto-caliph of the Islamic State (IS), Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), gave his fourth audio speech on 16 April 2007, “The Harvest of the Years for the State of the Muwahideen (Monotheists)”. An English version of al-Zawi’s speech was disseminated by IS’s al-Furqan Media and it is reproduced below with some editions in transliteration and syntax, and some interesting or important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 20, 2017
Muhsin al-Fadhli [top-left]; Abdul al-Sharikh (Sanafi an-Nasr) [bottom-left]; Radwan Nammous (Abu Firas al-Suri) [centre]; David Drugeon [top-right]; Rifai Taha (Abu Yasser al-Masri) [bottom-right]
Published at The International Business Times
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 18, 2017
Chelsea Manning (REUTERS/U.S. Army)
It might have been thought that a consistent opposition to treason was not all that difficult. But President Barack Obama’s surprise decision last night to commute the sentence of Bradley, now Chelsea, Manning, showed how deeply political partisanship has penetrated into areas like national security, where ideally country would be put before party or ideology. Continue reading
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