The Islamic State's Account of the Life of Omar al-Shishani

While the Islamic State continues to release its Arabic-language al-Naba’ newsletter on a weekly basis (with now more than 350 issues released online since 2015), it is in my view worth revisiting some of the older issues and translating some old ‘classics’ from the newsletter, particularly as so much of its content remains unanalysed and untranslated (in contrast with the excessive attention bestowed on the magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah by analysts and academics lacking research competency in Arabic).

One feature of al-Naba’ I have been interested in as part of my academic research is the ‘Life of a Martyr’ series, which is a recurring feature of the newsletter and aims to tell the life stories of ‘martyrs’ of the Islamic State and its immediate predecessor. This series can be seen as an example of the most recent kind of historical narrative in the group’s propaganda (i.e. most recent in terms of time period). Some of these biographies cover obscure figures who would probably otherwise have been unknown without an article devoted to their life. Others cover well-known and notorious ones. The article I translate here comes from al-Naba’ issue 39 pp. 8-9 and was released in July 2016. It covers the life of Omar al-Shishani.