Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
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Pundicity: Informed Opinion and Review
 

Latest Blog Posts

Islamic State Claims Moscow Attacks

March 22, 2024

Today, large-scale terrorist attacks took place in the Moscow area. Despite predictable conspiracy theories claiming that the attacks were a false-flag operation by the Russian government in order to rally support for Russia's war in Ukraine, the nature of the attacks captured on footage and the U.S. intelligence community's own warnings earlier this month about threats of an imminent attack by 'extremists' in Russia pointed to the Islamic State's responsibility. As should always be standard procedure, it is best to wait in the aftermath of any incident to see if the Islamic State issues some official kind of claim, and sure enough, it has done so, initially via its Amaq News agency (there will be other material from the group to follow, which I will post when it emerges).

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A Brief Military History of Jaysh al-Islam

March 21, 2024 at 3:16 pm

Jaysh al-Islam ("The Army of Islam") was once one of the most prominent insurgent factions during the Syrian civil war, with the bulk of its forces having been based in the East Ghouta area located just to the east of Damascus city. Since leaving East Ghouta and moving to the insurgent-held areas in northern Syria in 2018, Jaysh al-Islam has simply become yet another faction in the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Broadly speaking, Jaysh al-Islam has Salafi roots, but the faction came to mark itself in clear opposition to the jihadists of al-Qa 'ida and the Islamic State. Over time, it came to adopt imagery more clearly associated with the traditional 'Free Syrian Army' brand, and this remains the case today.

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Peter the Venerable's "Summary of the Entire Heresy of the Saracens"

March 14, 2024 at 3:07 pm

Ostensibly, the title of the work that is translated in this post- Summa Totius Haeresis Saracenorum ("Summary of the Entire Heresy of the Saracens")- suggests something that is little more than a medieval Christian rant against Islam as a supposed Christian heresy. On the other hand, its author- Peter the Venerable- is a figure of considerable significance in the history of Western study of Islam, because it was through his commission and financing that the first translation of the Qur'an into a Western European language was produced: namely, the Latin translation produced by Robert of Ketton during Peter's visit in the period 1142-1143 to monasteries Spain that were affiliated with his abbey of Cluny in France.

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Faylaq al-Wa'ad al-Sadiq Statement for Ramadan: Translation and Analysis

March 11, 2024

Faylaq al-Wa'ad al-Sadiq ("The True Promise Corps") is one of the Iraqi 'resistance' factions known to have fought U.S. forces in Iraq and to have participated in the war in Syria on the side of the Syrian government. I have also got the impression from Faylaq al-Wa'ad al-Sadiq's leader (whom I interviewed last month) that the group is one of the participants in the 'Islamic Resistance in Iraq' umbrella that has launched attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and has shifted focus to exclusively claiming operations of questionable credibility against Israel. However, Faylaq al-Wa'ad al-Sadiq's involvement in the 'Islamic Resistance in Iraq' umbrella has not been publicly declared by the latter or its known constituents, and it is to be noted that the group is not on the registers of the Hashd Sha'abi Commission unlike the publicly declared participants.

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The Lull in the Attacks Against U.S. Forces in Iraq and Syria: Overview and Analysis

March 7, 2024

In a recent feature item on the kidnapping of Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov in Iraq, ABC News counted more than 170 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria and Jordan (the Jordan incident being the one that killed three U.S. personnel) since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on 7 October. In so far as these attacks have been claimed and identified, the vast majority if not all of them can be traced to Iranian-backed armed groups operating in Iraq, in particular the groups operating under the umbrella of the 'Islamic Resistance in Iraq' (Kata'ib Hezbollah, Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada', Harakat al-Nujaba' and Ansar Allah al-Awfiya').

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