Tag Archives: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Foreign Dimension to the Irish Republican Army

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 24 January 2019

CCTV footage of the Londonderry bombing, 19 January 2019 [source]

The bombing in Londonderry over the weekend, ostensibly by “dissident” republican elements,[1] and the two further security scares in Northern Ireland since then have brought back memories of the separatist terror-insurgency waged against the United Kingdom by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), a war that has largely transitioned into a political phase. One fascinating aspect, looking back on PIRA’s armed campaign, is the foreign support it received, notably from the Soviet Union and its Arab clients. Continue reading →

The Fall of the Shah and the Rise of Islamism

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 January 2019

Forty years ago yesterday, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah (King) of Iran, left his country for the last time as a year-long revolution crested. A month later, the remnants of the Imperial Government collapsed and Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was swept to power after his long exile, establishing the first Islamist regime. Andrew Scott Cooper’s 2016 book, The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran, charts how this happened. Continue reading →

The Russian Relationship with Israel: A History

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 December 2018

© AP Photo / Jim Hollander, Pool

Essay: “Zionism is Making Us Stupid”: The Russian Relationship with Israel from the Soviets to Putin Continue reading →

Islamic State Denounces Those Who Make Palestine the Foremost Muslim Cause

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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.

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Black September: the PLO’s Deniable Terrorism Wing

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 19, 2015

A Black September terrorist appears on the balcony in the Olympic Village in Munich, September 1972 (photo via AP)

The Black September group was formed in September 1971, ostensibly as a splinter from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but in reality the PLO retained control of Black September and used it to carry out terrorist operations that raised the Palestinian organisations’ profile, without staining the PLO with these atrocities. Continue reading →