By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 August 2024
Islamic State Mocks the Losses of Iran and HAMAS
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Tag Archives: takfir
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: Bringing the Islamic State to Saddam’s Iraq and Joining Al-Qaeda
Reviewing the Mystery of Jihadi Ideologue Abdullah Azzam’s Assassination Three Decades Later
France Kills Al-Qaeda’s Man in North Africa
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 11 June 2020
France announced last Friday that its forces in Mali had killed Abd al-Malek Drukdel (Abu Musab Abd al-Wadud), the emir of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which covers the North Africa and Sahel areas. Paris has sometimes been unreliable on these matters, but the United States independently confirmed Drukdel was gone, as have sources within AQIM. The French also announced that on 19 May they had arrested Mohamed Mrabat, a veteran jihadist and member of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). Continue reading
Tunisia and Jihadism
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 26 May 2020
Early in his new book, Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, The Washington Institute’s Aaron Zelin quotes a pair of sociologists who note that ‘where theories are plentiful … ideas are vacuous’. The book is in many ways the antithesis of this approach. It is not without theoretical content; where social movement theory arises as a means of understanding jihadism, say, the author gives an overview of the literature to contextualise it for the reader. But the general approach is historical, empirical, and detail-rich, so that by the time Zelin summarises his findings in the various sections there can be no doubt about the evidentiary basis. Continue reading
Islamic State Threatens Democrats and Democracy
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 May 2018
Al-Naba 130, page 3
The 130th edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s (IS) newsletter, was published on 4 May 2018. On page 3, there was an article about IS’s position on democracy, which is reproduced below. Continue reading
Islamic State Declares Members of Al-Qaeda’s New Syrian Branch to Be Heretics
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 April 2018
Al-Naba 129, page 3
The 129th issue of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s newsletter, contained an article on page 3 that made takfir (excommunication) against Tandheem Hurras al-Deen (The Organization for the Guardians of the Religion or the Religious Guardians’ Organization), al-Qaeda’s new, if unofficial, branch in Syria. A rough translation of the article is reproduced below. Continue reading
Islamic State Recommends More Gentleness in Dealing With Sinners
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 10 March 2018
The 122nd edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, was released on 9 March 2018 and contained an article, on page 3, suggesting that the use of takfir (excommunication) should be circumscribed. A rough translation is reproduced below. Continue reading
Al-Maqdisi Weighs in on Turkey’s Intervention in Idlib and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 14 October 2017
Issam al-Barqawi (Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi), the Jordan-based jihadi-salafist cleric, put out a message on 12 October 2017 in reaction to the Turkish government moving forces into the Idlib Province in north-western Syria on 7 October. Initially it had seemed that Turkey was to confront Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al-Qaeda branch in Syria, but it soon became apparent that the operation was a redrawing of terms that was largely coordinated between Ankara and HTS. Given how critical al-Barqawi has been of HTS, this was interesting. Al-Barqawi’s statement was translated by Trunk News Translations and is republished below. Continue reading
How the Islamic State’s Founder Justified Murdering Shi’a Civilians
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 October 2017
Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi)
The Islamic State’s founder, Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), took the anti-Shi’ism within jihadi-salafism, and moved it to ideological centre-stage in his campaign to implement a shari’a regime in Iraq. In a speech on 18 May 2005, “The Return of Ibn al-Alqami’s Grandchildren”, al-Khalayleh cast the Shi’a as the internal enemies of Islam. Al-Alqami, a Shi’a, was the vast vizier of the Abbasid caliphate and allegedly opened the gates to allow the Mongols to sack Baghdad in 1258. In al-Khalayleh’s telling, the Iraqi Shi’a repeated this in 2003 by welcoming the Americans—a piece of sectarian incitement first used by Saddam Husayn. Al-Khalayleh makes reference to Shi’a figures conspiring in the American project for a New Iraq, something unalterably opposed not only by al-Khalayleh but most Iraqi Sunnis and their “resistance” groups, who objected to their loss of primacy in the aftermath of Saddam, flatly rejecting the demographic facts of Iraq that grant them a smaller share of power than they feel is their due. This political grievance is secondary to al-Khalayleh, however. Al-Khalayleh advances a cosmic, theological argument. To al-Khalayleh, the existence of the Shi’a is a standing affront to the “true” faith and a temptation for Sunnis to fall into apostasy, and since the need to defend the faith itself is above the protection of human life, the shedding of the blood of Shi’a civilians licit. This is the intellectual universe in which al-Khalayleh and his successors dwell. Excerpts from the speech are republished below. Continue reading
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