Tag Archives: Umar al-Kubaysi

The Coalition Targets Islamic State Propagandists and External Terrorists

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 29 July 2017

Baraa Kadek (Riyan Meshal) [image source]

The United States announced on 27 July that it had killed seven “senior ISIS propagandists and facilitators in Iraq and Syria” since late March. The removal of these terrorists takes from the Islamic State “extensive experience and training, and degrades ISIS’s ability to plan and conduct attacks on civilian targets in Iraq and Syria, as well throughout the region and in the West,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said. The geographical pattern of the strikes that killed these men allow some conclusions about IS’s current situation on the ground, and the information provided by CENTCOM underlines IS’s will and capacity, even as it loses its caliphate, to conduct external operations. Continue reading

American Sanctions Hit Islamic State’s Finances, Propaganda, and Terrorism

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 June 2017

Usama Atar, older picture and most recent (picture via CNN)

Just three days after the U.S. government sanctioned two Islamic State (IS or ISIS) operatives for their role in helping the jihadists develop chemical weapons of mass destruction, another raft of sanctions were issued on 15 June against four IS members occupying varying positions within the organization from finance to propaganda to orchestrating the foreign attacks. Continue reading