ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Sky Arabia says Carl Kampo, Austria-born legal advisor to force monitoring ceasefire abducted on February 7 Roi Kais, Yoav Zitun Sky Arabia reported Monday that an advisor to the commander of the United Nations force monitoring the ceasefire in the Golan Heights (UNDOF) was kidnapped on February 7. According to reports, Carl Kampo is a legal advisor from Austria. No further details were immediately available and the report has not been officially confirmed. The United Nations confirmed a member of the UN peacekeeping force is missing. "We can confirm that a staff member is not accounted for and we are in touch with the relevant parties to determine what has happened," UN deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said Monday. "We have no further comment at this time." The UN would not say whether the missing person was a peacekeeper or a civilian staff member. Hezbollah -affiliated Al-Mayadeen TV also quoted reports saying that an advisor to the UNDOF commander was abducted....

ANTAKYA, Turkey — A surge of rebel advances in Syria is being fueled at least in part by an influx of heavy weaponry in a renewed effort by outside powers to arm moderates in the Free Syrian Army, according to Arab and rebel officials. The new armaments, including anti-tank weapons and recoilless rifles, have been sent across the Jordanian border into the province of Daraa in recent weeks to counter the growing influence of Islamist extremist groups in the north of Syria by boosting more moderate groups fighting in the south, the officials say. The West Bank ceremony came amid signs leaders on both sides were trying to prevent more unrest. The arms are the first heavy weapons known to have been supplied by outside powers to the rebels battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad and his family’s four-decade-old regime since the Syrian uprising began two years ago. The officials declined to identify the source of the newly provided weapons, but they noted that the countries most closely...

BEIRUT: Five members of Syria’s security forces were killed by a car bomb in eastern Damascus Monday, and the blast was followed by heavy clashes between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, an activist group said. The force of the explosion in the Qaboun neighborhood shook the Syrian capital at around 9 p.m., residents said. State television and the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has monitored the violence in Syria since the uprising against Assad erupted nearly two years ago, said the blast was caused by a car bomb. The Observatory said rebels were clashing with security forces and that mortar shells had been fired in the area. Monday’s blast followed a series of car bombs in the capital Thursday, the biggest of which killed at least 60 people in the Mazraa district of Damascus, according to activists. Earlier in the day, regime warplanes bombarded the southwestern and eastern outskirts of the capital in a protracted bid to dislodge rebels fr...

JERUSALEM: A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed early Tuesday near Ashkelon in southern Israel, police said, in the first such strike since a November truce. "The rocket fell early in the morning near Ashkelon and did some damage to a road, without hurting anyone," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. It was the first such attack since the end of an Israeli operation late November, during which more than a thousand rockets were fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas. The two sides finally agreed a truce on November 21 following the eight-day Israeli military operation inside Gaza. The violence killed 177 Palestinians, about a hundred of them civilians, as well as six Israelis, four of whom were civilians, according to figures issued by the two sides. Tuesday's rocket fire comes at a time when tensions are particularly high following the weekend death of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail, who the P...

BEIRUT: Military involvement in Syria by Hezbollah endangers Lebanon, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea warned in remarks published Monday, adding that Beirut needs to stamp out military interference by any local group in Lebanon’s neighbor. “Where is Hezbollah’s commitment to the ‘Baabda Declaration?’” asked Geagea, referring to a 2012 agreement among rival Lebanese political leaders to neutralize the country from developments in the region, particularly in Syria. “If things remain as they are, we will be facing dire consequences and Lebanese citizens will pay the price once again,” Geagea, who spoke to An-Nahar newspaper, added. Reports emerged earlier this month suggesting Hezbollah was active at the military level in Syria. Security sources told The Daily Star that three members of Hezbollah and 12 Syrian fighters were killed earlier in the month during battles in the Syrian town of Al-Qusair, northeast of Lebanon. Although denying any participation in the fighting in Syria,...

CAIRO: A hot air balloon exploded as it was flying over Egypt's ancient temple city of Luxor on Tuesday, killing 19 people including tourists from Hong Kong, Japan, France and Britain, a security official said. "Nineteen people died," the official told AFP. The balloon which was carrying 21 people was flying at 300 metres (yards) over Qurna, in Luxor's West Bank, when it caught fire before exploding, the official said. The two survivors, including the balloon's pilot, have been taken to hospital, he said.

By Leon Hadar February 25, 2013 " Information Clearing House " - ( Reason ) - Both the critics and the admirers of the Central Intelligence Agency have tended to portray it as an all-knowing, all-powerful, invulnerable entity and to exaggerate the ability of America's spies to determine the outcome of developments around the world. An American reporter interviewing an ordinary citizen—or an official—in Cairo, Buenos Aires, or Seoul may hear that “everyone knows” that the CIA was behind the latest rise in the price of vegetables or the recent outbreak of flu among high-school kids. It’s like you Americans aren't aware of what's obvious (wink, wink). New histories of the agency, drawing on recently released classified information and memoirs by retired spies, provide a more complex picture of the CIA, its effectiveness, and its overall power, suggesting that at times Langley was manned not by James Bond clones but by a bunch of keystone cops. My favorite clandestine...

By Yousaf Butt February 25, 2013 " Information Clearing House " - ( Reuters ) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed last week that new second-generation centrifuges, which Iran plans to start up at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility, could cut by a third the time needed to create a nuclear bomb – underlining his deadline of this summer to take military action against Iran. Netanyahu’s prediction, however, appears to be based on some unsubstantiated assumptions regarding Iranian intentions and capabilities. Yet it can provide ammunition to the hawks in Washington and Jerusalem, who could rush us into another needless and counterproductive war in the Middle East. Netanyahu’s assertions do not stand up to technical scrutiny. Critically, he does not mention that Iran has been converting part of its 20-percent-enriched uranium hexafluoride gaseous stockpile into metallic form, for use as fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. This conversion essentially freezes ...