By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 May 2025
What Iran’s Leaks Really Tell Us About Syrian “Interim” President Ahmad al-Shara’s Past with the Islamic State
2 Replies
Tag Archives: Surge
The Death of Al-Qaeda’s Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri: One Year On
Islamic State and “Breaking the Walls”: Jihadist Prison Breaks
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 January 2022
Islamic State car bombing against Al-Sinaa prison in Syria, 20 January 2022 [image source]
The 2007 Islamic State Book “Informing Mankind” of its Justifications for the Caliphate
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 November 2021
The Islamic State movement published an 87-page book, “Informing Mankind of the Birth of the Islamic State” or “Informing the People of the Birth of the Islamic State” (I’lam al-Anam bi-Milad Dawlat al-Islam), on 7 January 2007. The document was released by Al-Furqan Media Foundation, the central Islamic State propaganda institution, and first appeared on the World News Network website. A rough translation of the book appears below.
The Islamic State’s Acknowledgement of the Deaths of Abu Umar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir
The State of Play in Syria and Iraq on the Eve of the Idlib Offensive
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 29 August 2018
Two ideas that have become quite prevalent are that the Islamic State is defeated or on its way to defeat and that the Syrian war is winding down. Both are gravely mistaken. Continue reading
Reviewing the Iraqi Surge and Awakening
Book Review: Carter Malkasian, ‘Illusions of Victory’, Oxford University Press, 2017. pp. 280.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 July 2018
Carter Malkasian sets out in Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State to upend the conventional understanding of the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) movement, known at the time as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), in Anbar province of western Iraq. Continue reading
Islamic State Claims its Switch to Insurgency and Terrorism is Working
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 December 2017
Al-Naba 112, page 3
The 112th edition of the Islamic State’s newsletter, Al-Naba, released on 29 December 2017 contained an article on page 3, which reported that the reversion from statehood to insurgency was yielding results, particularly in the Diyala, Kirkuk, and Saladin provinces of Iraq. The article is reproduced below. Continue reading
Islamic State Officially Gives Up the Caliphate, Returns to Insurgency
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 November 2017
Al-Naba 101, page 8
In the 101st edition of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba (page 8-9), released on 12 October 2017, the organisation gave some fascinating details about how they responded to the “defeat” inflicted on them in 2007-08 by the American surge and the tribal Sahwa (Awakening) forces. The article describes how IS switched wholly to insurgent-terrorist tactics, dismantling its conventional fighting units and even its sniper teams in March 2008, and training in hit-and-run bombings. The leadership at that time, the emir Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi) and his deputy, the “first minister” and the “war minister” Abdul Munim al-Badawi (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir), encountered some initial scepticism, but the rank-and-file soon came on board when they saw its effectiveness. IS says that it is time to return to this form of warfare. In short, IS marked a switch in al-Naba 101 entirely from the statehood and governance phase of its revolutionary warfare, back into insurgency mode. The article is reproduced below. Continue reading
Signs of Recovery for the Islamic State
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 22, 2017
The operation to clear the Islamic State (IS) from its Iraqi capital, Mosul, began on 17 October and is now 188 days old. IS was announced cleared from east Mosul on 25 January, and the offensive that began on 19 February to clear the more densely-populated and difficult west Mosul has ostensibly swept IS from sixty percent of that area. Official sources claim IS now controls less than seven percent of Iraqi territory, down from forty percent in 2014. But yesterday, a car bomb struck Zuhur, the first attack of this kind in east Mosul since February, murdering at least four people. This is part of a pattern of attacks that suggests the Mosul operation itself was rushed and more importantly that IS is already recovering in liberated areas. Continue reading
Kyle Orton's Blog 