Tag Archives: terrorism

Is Ahrar a-Sham a “Moderate” Syrian Rebel Group?

12 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on July 12, 2015

Ahrar a-Sham

To answer my headline simply: no, Ahrar a-Sham’s leadership is not what anybody in the West means by “moderate” Syrian rebels that could be supported.

The question is provoked by an op-ed in The Washington Post last night signed by Labib al-Nahhas, Ahrar’s foreign political relations officer, the culmination of a public-relations campaign by Ahrar to rebrand itself as the mainstream alternative to the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Assad tyranny we’ve all been waiting for. Continue reading →

A Myth Revisited: “Saddam Hussein Had No Connection To Al-Qaeda”

2 Replies

Book Review: The Connection: How al-Qaeda’s Collaboration With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (2004) by Stephen Hayes

By Kyle Orton(@KyleWOrton) on June 21, 2015

 

More than twelve years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the conventional wisdom is that Saddam’s regime had no connection with al-Qaeda, and such “evidence” as was adduced was tortured out of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi in the Bush administration’s desperation to cobble together a casus belli. But if one puts ideology on hold, and considers the evidence of Stephen Hayes’ The Connection, a rather different picture emerges. Continue reading →

Islamic State Claims the Attack on Muhammad Cartoon Event in Texas

2 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 22, 2015

Dabiq 9, page 4

The Islamic State released the ninth edition of Dabiq, its English-language magazine, on May 21, 2015. The Foreword, on pages 3 and 4, claims “credit” for the attempted terrorist attack against in Garland, Texas, on May 3. The two would-be killers, Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi, were killed outside the Curtis Culwell Center, which was hosting a “draw (Prophet) Muhammad” cartoon contest, led by anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, who was among the primary targets of the attack. The attack had been guided by Islamic State operative Junaid Hussain, a British hacker. The article is reproduced below with some edits for transliteration. Continue reading →

Islamic State Leader Attacks Saudi Arabia, Claims to Be the Sunni Vanguard

Leave a reply

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 15, 2015

The Islamic State’s “caliph”, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), gave his ninth speech on May 14, 2015. The speech was entitled, “March Forth Whether Light or Heavy”, based on the 41st verse of the ninth sura of the Qur’an, Al-Tawba. A transcript of this speech was released and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Islamic State Threatens Anti-Islam Activists, Claims A “Province” in America

3 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 6, 2015

Two American loyalists of the Islamic State, Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi, were killed during an attempted attack—guided by the British Islamic State operative Junaid Husain—on the Curtis Culwell Centre in Garland, Texas, on 3 May 2015. The primary intent of Simpson and Soofi was to murder anti-Islam agitator Pamela Geller, who was among the chief sponsors of an event taking place in the Centre that day: The “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest”.

A statement was circulated on 6 May 2017 by an American Islamic State supporter, “Abu Ibrahim al-Ameriki,” which claimed that Simpson and Soofi had been fully aware how well-guarded the Curtis Culwell Centre was but had intended “to show how easy we give our lives for the Sake of Allah”. Abu Ibrahim went on to threaten not only Geller but “[e]veryone who houses her events [or] gives her a platform”. Abu Ibrahim concluded by claiming that this attack was “only the beginning” of an Islamic State effort to establish a wilaya (province), as the Islamic State calls its foreign branches or affiliates, “in the heart of our enemy”. According to Abu Ibrahim, the Islamic State already has seventy-one “trained soldiers” in fifteen American states, including Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, California, and Michigan.

Abu Ibrahim’s full statement is reproduced below, with some important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Syria’s Jihad Comes Home To The United States

2 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 16, 2015

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud

A United States Federal grand jury has charged Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud (a.k.a. Ayanle), a 23-year-old from Columbus, with one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to terrorists, one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization (both counts punishable by up to fifteen years in prison each), and one count of making false statements to the FBI in an indictment returned in the Southern District of Ohio (which carries a sentence of eight years).

Some of the press reports have been a little muddled, but the indictment is available to read and provides some intriguing details. Continue reading →

An Update On The Anti-Assad Imam Killed In London

2 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 13, 2015

Abdul Hadi Arwani

Abdul Hadi Arwani

In Brent, northwest London, in the evening of April 12, a 46-year-old man was arrested as part of the ongoing investigation into the April 7 murder of the Syrian-born imam, Abdul Hadi Arwani, a long-time opponent of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Writing about the murder of Arwani last week, I noted that the available evidence suggested the motivations of the murderer(s) could be:

  • Financial: related to Arwani’s business dealings as the owner of his construction company
  • Other local or personal
  • Far-Right anti-Muslim
  • Intra-Islamist: Arwani had been the director at the Salafist An-Noor Mosque and was himself clearly an Islamist, but Arwani was against the Islamic State (ISIS), for example, which might have made him enemies among some congregants
  • Agents of the Assad regime, conceivably with the complicity of Iran and Russia

Those options still stand, but some important updates over the weekend have helped alter the relative likelihood of each. Continue reading →

Further Evidence of Mohammed Emwazi’s Radical Ties—And CAGE’s Meltdown

5 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 7, 2015

Asim Qureshi; Mohammed Emwazi (

Asim Qureshi; Mohammed Emwazi (“Jihadi John”)

Earlier this week I wrote of the unmasking of “Jihadi John,” the Islamic State’s (ISIS) video-beheader, as 26-year-old British citizen Mohammed Emwazi. I had two purposes. One was to gloat over the implosion of CAGE (formerly Cageprisoners), an Islamist terrorist-advocacy group that had gotten itself called a “human rights organisation”. And the second was to point out that the narrative peddled by CAGE and other apologists, that Emwazi had been radicalised by heavy-handed British security methods, was plainly absurd.

Emwazi had been associating with al-Qaeda agents and sympathisers and was part of a London-based network that dispatched fighters to al-Qaeda’s Somali branch al-Shabab years before he came into contact with the security services—indeed the security services had only taken an interest in Emwazi because he was already radicalised. In the last few days both of these trends have continued: CAGE’s total collapse moves closer and Emwazi’s known nefarious associations are multiplying. Continue reading →

The Islamic State Officially Expands to Afghanistan

2 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 26 January 2015

The spokesman of the Islamic State (ISIS), Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, gave a speech today entitled, “Say, ‘Die in Your Rage’,” which is drawn from a Surah of the Qur’an [3:119]. The main announcement from Adnani is the acceptance of another wilayat (province), i.e. foreign branch of IS, this time in Afghanistan, led by Hafiz Saeed Khan, a former Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or “Pakistani Taliban” commander who broke away and formed a pro-ISIS faction in October. This follows the first declaration on this matter a month ago by IS’s caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which accepted “provinces” from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria. Adnani went on to make the foredoomed request that the Afghan jihadists “abandon disunity and factionalism” in order to join ISIS. Continue reading →

The Long History of Middle Eastern State-Terrorism In Paris

8 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 19, 2015

Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi

Last week, Lee Smith wrote of the reasons that it was likely that there was a foreign hand, quite probably that of a State, in the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish deli in Paris. Smith noted that the French believe that the funding and weapons for the attacks came from abroad. Smith pointed to the historical record, in which terrorism in Paris is typically not carried out because of religion—or not directly: it might come from States that see themselves as god’s representatives on earth—or community grievances, but “because you’re getting paid to stage an operation on behalf of a particular cause or regime.” Smith gave three cases, and they seemed worth expanding on. Continue reading →