By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 March 2024

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:
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
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.
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