By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 May 2021
Wael al-Ta’i (Abu Muhammad al-Furqan), Al-Naba 285, p. 3
The 285th edition of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), released on 6 May, had a biography of Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, one of the most important IS leaders, the head of its Central Media Department and its operational ruler when he was killed in September 2016. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 November 2019
This article was originally published at European Eye on Radicalization
The destroyed compound where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was found in Syria // Drone footage taken by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency
The so-called caliph of the Islamic State (ISIS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), was killed in an American raid in Syria on 27 October, and the spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was killed the next day in an airstrike. ISIS acknowledged the losses and appointed new leaders on Halloween.
Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi introduced himself in a nearly-eight-minute audio statement as the new spokesman and named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as Al-Baghdadi’s replacement. Little information was given about either man.
The U.S. government has said it knows “almost nothing” about the new caliph, Abu Ibrahim, leaving us no closer, for now, to knowing his identity. But some options present themselves. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 July 2019
Sketch of Ruslan Asainov // Image credit: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
In the Eastern District of New York, on 19 July, a criminal complaint was unsealed against Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, described in the press release as a “naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kazakhstan”. According to the release, Asainov is to be charged with providing and attempting to provide “material support, including training, services, and personnel” to a terrorist group, namely the Islamic State (IS), which he joined in 2013 and rose through the ranks to become an emir. Asainov was captured by the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), the Coalition’s anti-IS Kurdish partner force, and handed over to the FBI, before being returned to America this month. The maximum penalty for these charges is twenty years imprisonment, and it is likely the U.S. government will be seeking additional charges in the indictment. The case raises an interesting question over the gaps in knowledge about IS. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 August 2017
A year ago, I wrote a report documenting the biographies of Islamic State (IS) leaders and something of the structure of the organisation. Since then, the intricacies of the structure have been further revealed, even as it has somewhat crumbled in practice. The caliphate—the statelet built by IS—has been significantly degraded: the Iraqi “capital”, Mosul, has fallen, and operation to clear the Syrian “capital”, Raqqa, is underway. More significantly, upwards of 40% of those profiled have been killed, so it seemed an opportune moment for an update on who currently leads the world’s most infamous terrorist movement.
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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 9, 2016
U.S.-led Coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State (AFP)
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) is an activist group working from within the capital of the Islamic State (or so-called capital of the so-called Islamic State, if you prefer) to bring news to the outside world of the horrors therein. For this they have paid a heavy price. On 22 September, RBSS published a list on Twitter of eighteen Islamic State (IS) operatives who had been killed by the U.S.-led Coalition between 20 August and 21 September 2016. This list, presented below with some notes and context, shows the preparations being made for the rapidly-approaching offensive on IS’s Iraqi capital. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 18, 2016
Raqqa
The Coalition announced on Friday that it had killed Wael al-Fayad, more fully Wael Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, also known as Wael al-Rawi, Dr. Wael, and Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, a reference no doubt to al-Furqan Media, IS’s oldest and most important propaganda organ, which al-Fayad controlled. The head of IS’s Media Council, thus a key member of the group’s propaganda output, al-Fayad was a member of its Shura Council. The obscurity of his name is likely a testament to his seniority and importance within IS. [UPDATE: This turned out to be correct, though Abu Muhammad’s real name was Wael al-Ta’i, as IS revealed in May 2021, and he had also used the names “Ahmad al-Ta’i”, the media emir appointed in “the State’s” second cabinet back in 2009, and “Abu Ubayda Abd al-Hakim”, the mysterious senior IS operative who made a series of media “appearances” in 2011 and signed several captured letters addressed from IS-centre to the wilayats after 2014]
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