By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 April 2018
Al-Naba 125, page 10
The 125th edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s (IS) weekly newsletter, has an article on page 10, “From History: A River of Blood”, which relays a story that gives a good example of how IS uses Islamic historiography to justify its brutality. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 31 March 2018
Hamza bin Ladin, son of Usama and one of al-Qaeda’s rising media stars, released an audio speech on 31 March, labelled as the sixth edition of his “Sovereignty of the Best of Nations Is In the Uprising of the People of the Haram” series. Oddly, the last speech in the series, released on 18 January, was labelled as the fourth instalment. This speech also focused on delegitimising the Saudi government, in this case by laying out the history of its close relations with the United States and the work the Saudis have done to suppress jihadism. An English-language transcript was released by al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab Media and is reproduced below with some editions in transliteration. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 25 March 2018
Katibat al-Imam al-Bukhari (image source)
The United States Department of State designated Katibat al-Imam al-Bukhari (KIB), the Taliban-loyal insurgent unit in Syria, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) on 22 March. Over the last few days, KIB and other insurgent groups have issued statements in response. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 23 March 2018
Devastation at the World Trade Centre, 11 September 2001 | NYPD / GREG SEMENDINGER
Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, gave a speech on 20 March 2018, “America is the First Enemy of the Muslims”. An English transcript of al-Zawahiri’s speech was released by As-Sahab Media and is reproduced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 March 2018
The first leader of the Islamic State (IS) after it was declared in 2006, Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), gave a series of twenty-three speeches until he was killed in April 2010. Al-Zawi’s speeches laid out the strategic and ideological vision of the movement. The fifth speech, “And If You Cease, It Will Be Better for You” or “Should You Desist [in attacking the Islamic State], Then That Is Better for You”, was given as an audio statement on 8 July 2007. An English transcript of the speech was released by IS’s Al-Furqan Media and is reproduced below with some important and interesting sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 March 2018
Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, gave a speech on 18 March 2018, “East Africa Is The Trench of Southern Islam”, which is the tenth in the “Islamic Spring” series. An English translation of al-Zawahiri’s speech was released by an al-Qaeda channel on Telegram and is reproduced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 March 2018
A video statement was put out on 15 October 2006 by the official spokesman of what was then called the Mujahideen Shura Council (al-Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen or MSM), the entity in which Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had nominally subsumed itself in January 2006, announcing the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The MSM spokesman, Muharib al-Jubouri, seen above, who had not been in the job long—the first AQI/MSM spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, had been killed a few months earlier—was now the ISI spokesman,[1] and his speech made clear that a coalition of tribesmen and insurgents announced by MSM three days earlier, the Alliance of the Scented Ones (Hilf al-Mutayibeen), was also incorporated in this “State”. The transcript of Muharib’s speech, entitled (unimaginatively enough), “Announcement on the Establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq”, is translated below.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 March 2018
Screenshot from video of a PKK attack on Turkish diplomats in Paris, France (13 March 2018)
A wave of politically motivated violence has swept over Europe in the last few days, carried out by an extremist group and its sympathisers, accompanied by public statements threatening further attacks.
These attacks are intended to change western policy to one more suitable to the attackers.
The conventional term for this is “terrorism”.
These assailants are not Islamist, however; they are from the Kurdish PKK, and this seems to have both reduced the amount of attention this campaign has received, and to have dulled the reaction from some who suggest that perhaps the attackers have a point. Continue reading
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
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 March 2018
Ayman al-Zawahiri during speech on 6 March 2018 (screen grab)
Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, gave a nine-minute speech on 6 March 2018, entitled, “France Has Returned Oh Descendants of the Lions”. The essential message is that European “invaders” are back in the Maghreb, the Muslim-majority states west of Egypt (those states to the east are referred to as the Mashriq), either directly or through local regimes that adhere to the foreigners’ program, political and economic. Al-Zawahiri condemns the post-“Arab Spring” governments that have sought stability by compromise between the revolutionary movements that ousted the dictatorships and the old elites. For al-Zawahiri, the only just solution one achieved by a violent, jihadist campaign that sweeps the old order out entirely. An English transcript of the speech was released by al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab Media, and is reproduced below. Continue reading
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