Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Al-Qaeda Attacks The Legitimacy of the Saudi Regime

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 January 2018

The son of al-Qaeda’s founder, Hamza Usama bin Ladin, released a short, twelve-minute speech earlier today, the fourth episode of “Sovereignty of the Best of Nations Is In the Uprising of the People of the Haram”. Hamza root-and-branch condemns the legitimacy of the Saudi monarchy as founded on a pact with a disbelieving state, Britain. An English translation of the speech was released by al-Qaeda’s as-Sahab Media and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

What The West Can Do About The Iran Protests

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 January 2018

Protests in Tehran, Iran, 30 December 2017. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Protests broke out against the Iranian government on 27 December, and have achieved a wider geographic spread in the country than even the massive uprising of June 2009, reaching into religiously conservative, working-class towns and districts traditionally regarded as pro-regime. It is likely these demonstrations will be suppressed, but that does not obviate the need for Western policy. To the contrary, the protests exposed several flawed assumptions in recent policy-making, and a course correction is urgently necessary. Continue reading →

Another Product of “Londonistan”: Abdullah Ibrahim al-Faisal

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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 →

Al-Qaeda Responds to Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy Move

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 December 2017

Responding to President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier today that he will move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, al-Qaeda have put out a statement that threatens retaliatory strikes against U.S. interests. Notably, al-Qaeda singles out Saudi Arabia as a government that has to be attacked for enabling Western operations against the jihadists. The statement is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Ayman al-Zawahiri Finally Addresses the Problems with Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Branch

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 December 2017

The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, gave a thirty-five-minute speech on 28 November 2017, entitled: “Let Us Fight Them As A Solid Structure” (or “Let Us Fight Them As One Body” or “Let Us Fight Them With Solid Foundations”), dealing with the vexed question of al-Qaeda’s relationship with the Syrian jihadi group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a situation that escalated again in recent days. The mention of an impending Turkish intervention into Idlib—which began on 7 October—suggests that al-Zawahiri recorded this speech in the last days of September or the first few days of October. An English transcript of the speech was released by As-Sahab Media, and is reproduced below with some edits for syntax and transliteration. Continue reading →

The Gulf Crisis and British Interests

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 December 2017

The decision by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt to impose a boycott on Qatar this summer was an out-of-character development for the Gulf, where all too much politics is conducted behind closed doors between the ruling families and elites. To go public, the schism between Qatar and the so-called Quartet must have been very serious.

It was the end-point of a dispute that began in the 1990s about Qatar’s foreign policy, which at that point became independent of the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and indeed actively competitive with Saudi interests. Doha wanted to alter the Saudi-oriented status quo and did so by empowering groups—almost invariably Islamists—in its cause. Those Islamists not only had agendas running counter to the other Gulf states’ conception of regional order, but which the Quartet regarded as threatening to their internal security. Continue reading →

Qatar and the Gulf Crisis

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 November 2017

I released a report today, published by the Henry Jackson Society, Qatar and the Gulf Crisis. The intent was to examine the charges made against the Qatari government by its Gulf neighbours with regard to the funding of terrorism, the hosting of extremists, the dissemination of hate speech and incitement, among other things. Having separated fact from fiction with regards to he accusations against Qatar, the report proposes how Britain might proceed in such a way as to press Doha on issues of concern, while avoiding being drawn into the middle of the Gulf dispute, and trying to foster reconciliation between allies, especially at a time when a united front is necessary to oppose the far larger challenge of the Iranian theocracy.  Continue reading →

Syria’s Opposition Delegation Diluted At Conference in Saudi Arabia

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 27 November 2017

In Saudi Arabia on 24 November 2017, the so-called “Riyadh Two” Conference for the Syrian opposition concluded by selecting a delegation that further eroded the meaning of “opposition”, while retaining the formality of being an opposition by issuing a statement that insisted on the departure of Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Asad. Continue reading →

America Reveals How Iran Funds Instability in Yemen

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 23 November 2017

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the U.S. Department of Treasury, on 20 November, sanctioned “a network of individuals and entities involved in a large-scale scheme to help Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) counterfeit currency to support its destabilizing activities” in Yemen. Continue reading →

Iran Escalates its Subversive Activities in Bahrain

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Post originally appeared at The Henry Jackson Society

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 November 2017

Fire at the oil pipeline in Buri village, south of Manama, Bahrain, 10 Nov. 2017. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Just over a week ago, the major oil pipeline in Bahrain was bombed by operatives the government says were working for the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the latest in an escalating series of terrorist attacks inside Bahrain. Throughout the year, Manama has also been rolling up terrorist cells that have links to Iran’s intelligence services and Bahraini citizens now in Iran that form part of Tehran’s regional terrorist network. The breakdown in Gulf unity is especially worrying in the face of this intensified Iranian aggression and subversion in Bahrain. Continue reading →