By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 26 March 2023
British MP, Soviet Spy: Tom Driberg
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Tag Archives: United States
What To Make of China “Brokering” the Saudi-Iran Deal
Nazism: Origins and the Weimar Context
Al-Qaeda and Global Terrorism: What is the Current Threat?
Western Self-Hatred and the Iranian Revolution
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 November 2022
The late Bernard Lewis recorded in his memoir, Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian (2012), meeting the Shah of Iran “a year before” the Islamic Revolution that felled him, thus, some time in early 1978:
“Socialism With A Human Face” Was Always Impossible
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 21 August 2022
It was on this day in 1968, fifty-four years ago, that the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, one of its colonies in the “Warsaw Pact”, which had embarked on a program of liberalising reforms. The Czech leadership did not intend to depart from the socialist path, merely to soften its edges—and ran into the brute fact that this was not possible. Continue reading
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.
Tajikistan and the Afghan Resistance
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 October 2021
Since the takeover of Afghanistan by a coalition of jihadists controlled by Pakistan, the one neighbouring state to vocally object is Tajikistan, which has extended support to the remaining anti-Taliban resistance. This is a reprise of Tajikistan’s role in the 1990s, when it provided a rear base to the United Islamic Front (UIF) or “Northern Alliance”, and was the gateway for the states supporting the UIF, notably Pakistan’s great rival India. Continue reading
Joe Biden Chose Disaster in Afghanistan
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 August 2021
The Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital on Sunday after a nine-day offensive captured one provincial capital after another. The United States had already decided to abandon the country, and without the US the other NATO states had no choice but to leave. It was quite clear that the Afghan state would crumble in the absence of a Western presence, though it seems President Joe Biden thought he would have a longer “decent interval” before the Saigon evacuation scenes and the massacres began. Continue reading
The First Speech of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as Al-Qaeda in Iraq Emir
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 5 April 2021
Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), the infamous founder of the Islamic State movement, known at the time as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and formerly part of the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), was killed on 7 June 2006. Zarqawi’s successor was officially announced five days later, in a written statement released on 12 June, as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, an Egyptian with a long history in and around Al-Qaeda. The next day, 13 June 2006, Abu Hamza gave his first speech as AQI emir, entitled, “The Gathering Will Be Defeated and They Will Turn Their Backs [in Retreat]”, drawn from an ayat of the Qur’an (54:45). The statement and the speech are translated below.
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