By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 November 2025
Can Syria’s Future Escape Ahmad al-Shara’s Past?
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Tag Archives: Sanctions
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Saddam Relative Arrested in Lebanon, Accused of Islamic State Crimes
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 24 August 2022
Area on the banks of the Tigris where the cadets of Camp Speicher were massacred by the Islamic State || Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor
United Nations Report Finds Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Reduced, But Reviving
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 July 2022
Islamic State in Palmyra, December 2016
The Challenge for Western Intelligence in Talibanized Afghanistan
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 June 2022
A U.S. helicopter above the American Embassy in Kabul, 15 August 2021 | AP
The Islamic State Benefits From the Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 September 2021
In his speech last night announcing the end of the American presence in Afghanistan and what happens next, Secretary of State Blinken said: “The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support”, and “the Taliban can do that by meeting commitments and obligations”, which include “counter-terrorism”.
To most people it will seem strange that the Taliban could be regarded as a counter-terrorism partner, and it is. Despite the U.S. never formally listing the Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), the Taliban is fully integrated in a jihadist network under the control of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that includes Al-Qaeda. Continue reading
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