ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Russian Air Forces have eliminated several Islamic State commanders striking a building in Raqqa, where they were holding a meeting. The intelligence data for the operation was provided by opposition forces, Russia' Defense Ministry said. “The reported area was constantly surveyed from air for two days. After the arrival of commanders was confirmed, a Su-34 targeted the building used as the venue of the meeting. The building was totally eliminated by a guided bomb,” the ministry reported on its website Wednesday. In total, Russian bombers carried out 121 sorties over the last two days, hitting a total of 424 targets across Syria. The raids were undertaken by Su-24, Su-25 and Su-34 warplanes. In the Aleppo province, Su-25 planes conducted a number of airstrikes against terrorist targets. As a result, a tank and three vehicles were destroyed. Attacks in the Idlib province also targeted Al-Nusra Front forces, while an IS arms depot, which contained weapons and machinery, was

The Obama administration still sticks to the Cold War 2.0 script on Russia. By Pepe Escobar The fight to the death in Moscow’s inner circles is really between the Eurasianists and the so-called Atlantic integrationists, a.k.a. the Western fifth column. The crux of the battle is arguably the Russian Central Bank and the Finance Ministry – where some key liberalcon monetarist players are remote-controlled by the usual suspects, the Masters of the Universe. The same mechanism applies, geopolitically, to any side, in any latitude, which has linked its own fiat money to Western central banks. The Masters of the Universe always seek to exercise hegemony by manipulating usury and fiat money control. So why President Putin does not fire the head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiulina, and a great deal of his financial team - as they keep buying U.S. bonds and propping up the U.S. dollar instead of the ruble? What’s really being aggressed here if not Russian interests? That Stab in th

The Russian Air Force has helped the Syrian Democratic Forces liberate 20 residential areas from Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL) around the city of Raqqa, the extremist groups’ stronghold, a Russian military spokesman said. Assisted by Russian air support, the Syrian Democratic Forces have made significant progress in IS-controlled areas in Syria, according to the head of the Russian General Staff’s operations department, Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy. “The troops of the Syrian Democratic Forces, commanded by Ayman Flyat el-Ganim, with the support of the Russian Air Force, conducted an offensive toward the ISIS capital, Raqqa. As a result of this offensive, approximately 20 residential areas were liberated from extremists. Strategic control was established over the important dam on the river Euphrates at al-Ahmar,” Rudskoy said at a press conference in Moscow. An opposition rebel group, the Syrian Democratic Forces, was established in October of 2015 that unite

By Pepe Escobar  In his seminal 'Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization,' Bryan Ward-Perkins writes, "Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever... They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.” The Empire of Chaos, today, is not about complacency. It’s about hubris – and fear. Ever since the start of the Cold War the crucial question has been who would control the great trading networks of Eurasia - or the “heartland”, according to Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861–1947), the father of geopolitics. We could say that for the Empire of Chaos, the game really started with the CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953, when the US finally encountered, face to face, that famed Eurasia crisscrossed for centuries by the Silk Road(s), and set out to conquer them all. Only six decades later, it’s clear there won’t be an American Silk Road in the 21st century, but rather, just like its ancient predecessor, a Chinese o

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has released footage of their security forces on the streets of Sirte in Libya - the so-called ‘Islamic Police’. The terrorist group is trying to take over more Libyan territories, as the West eyes a possible intervention for the second time in five years. The footage is reportedly aimed at showing off IS control over Sirte. The terror group now holds territories far beyond Syria and Iraq, something raising concern across the world. “In Iraq and Syria, ISIL has suffered significant setbacks. It doesn’t mean that they don’t remain a threat. They do. <…> We’ve seen them try to get a toehold in North Africa,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby said during the latest press briefing. His fears are echoed by other US officials. Earlier, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter compared Islamic State’s presence in the Middle East with a“growing tumor.” “Even as we work to defeat ISIL in Syria and Iraq, where its parent tumor has grown, we als

In a message to the Libyan people, the US President said the 2011 Libyan revolution liberated them from “42 years of dictatorship.” Now there are “profound challenges,” which the Libyan people “have demonstrated the commitment to resolve.” Barack Obama welcomed the endorsement of the Libyan Political Agreement signed on December 17 and expressed confidence that with political dialogue and the establishment of a Government of National Accord, peace, prosperity, and security would come in the divided country. MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA TO THE LIBYAN PEOPLE, DECEMBER 24, 2015رسالة من الرئيس باراك أوباما إلى الشعب اللي...Опубликовано U.S. Embassy Libya 23 декабря 2015 г. A week ago, during his end-of-year press conference, President Obama admitted the US has“some accountability” for not being swift enough and underestimating the need to rebuild government in Libya once Muammar Gaddafi was toppled. “As a consequence, you now have a very bad situation,” Obama said. The UN Secretary

Don't file this one under "surprising", but a video has emerged of ISIS jihadists having a lovely chit-chat with Turkish border guards. The video is allegedly from October, so this is not a new Turkish tourism campaign launched in the wake of losing hundreds of thousands of Russian tourists. No, Turkey just sort of "likes" ISIS. They go together like peas and carrots. This is precious : The clip begins with the two apparent jihadists lighting fires near a group of cars, which are believed to have been abandoned by desperate Kurdish families who fled Kobane in recent weeks when ISIS militants stepped up their attacks on the city. After appearing to realise they are being filmed from inside Turkey, the pair start walking towards the border fence, stopping only to mockingly wave at the amateur filmmaker. As they reach the border fence, an armoured military vehicle belonging to Turkish border guards speeds up to meet them. Heavily armed officials jump out the bac

Arrival of Russian S-400 has forced the US to halt manned flights in some parts of Syria, a Pentagon official said There is a new crisis for the international effort to destroy the Islamic State, created by the Kremlin. The U.S. has stopped flying manned air-support missions for rebels in a key part of northern Syria due to Russia’s expansion of air defense systems there, and the Barack Obama administration is scrambling to figure out what to do about it. Russia’s military operations inside Syria have been expanding in recent weeks, and the latest Russian deployments, made without any advance notice to the U.S., have disrupted the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to support Syrian rebel forces fighting against the Islamic State near the Turkey-Syria border, just west of the Euphrates River, several Obama administration and U.S. defense officials told us. This crucial part of the battlefield, known inside the military as Box 4, is where a number of groups have been fighting the Islamic

The Western public just has to get used to it - Assad's not going anywhere, and not because of what Russia or Iran says, but because he's Syrians' choice By David Macilwain On Sunday Syria's President Bashar al Assad went with his wife Asma to a Christmas Mass concert in Damascus. For many people in the West, the photos that soon appeared of Bashar and Asma hugging and being hugged by small children, old men and young women would probably cause consternation or apoplexy - if they were to see them. But this is unlikely, as Western media would exercise its duty of care to protect people from such an upsetting sight, and the public disorder that might result. It shouldn't worry however that people's perception of the Syrian leader might change for the better; it is simply not possible for this to happen, any more than it is possible that Syrians would change their minds about President Assad. The Western media apparatus has strange standards of propriety - often

The Jobar neighborhood of Damascus is the epicenter of some of the fiercest fighting in Syria with Islamist rebels refusing to give up their only stronghold. Once densely populated, the area has now been completely obliterated, RT’s Murad Gadziev reports. Most of the pre-conflict population has fled the rebel-held neighborhood of Jobar in the eastern suburb of Ghouta in Damascus, while fighting between the Syrian army and rebel groups has devastated the suburb over the past years. Before the conflict in Syria erupted in 2011, the neighborhood was home to some 300,000 residents, most of whom were Sunni Muslims. The suburb contained a number of ancient landmarks, most notably the Green Synagogue, the oldest Jewish synagogue in the world. It also contained the Grand Jobar Mosque in addition to the tomb of the Prophet Elijah. Jobar also housed ancient baths that were built during Ottoman times. Now totally destroyed, as can be seen in RT’s exclusive drone footage, Jobar is just one

SAS and US special forces reportedly bolstering Afghan military in Helmand province, a year after Nato pulled combat troops out of country   Afghan National Army soldiers patrol in Helmand on Monday. Much of the town of Sangin has been taken over by Taliban forces. Photograph: Noor Mohammad/AFP/Getty Images The Afghanistan government has suffered a serious setback after a Taliban offensive succeeded in taking control of much of Sangin, the Helmand town that became totemic for British forces, accounting for a third of their casualties. The fall of key locations in and around the town on Sunday and Monday comes just a year after Nato pulled combat troops out of Afghanistan. Since then the Taliban has made inroads in Helmand and elsewhere around the country. The SAS and US special forces have been deployed to help retake lost ground in the province, according to reports from the Times and Wall Street Journal . The Taliban stormed the police headquarters, the administrative headquarte

For more than a century, Dabiq was one of northern Syria’s forsaken villages, a speck on a vast agricultural plain between the Turkish border and the deserts of Iraq, which hardly seemed likely to shape the fate of nations. A weathered sign at its entrance said 4,000 people lived there, most of whom appeared to have left by 2013, driven out over time by a lack of work – and lately by insurrection. For the first three years of Syria’s civil war, the arrival of a strange car would lure bored children to the town’s otherwise empty streets, scattering cats and chickens as they scampered after it. Little else moved. Dabiq’s few remaining men worked on the odd building project: a half-finished mosque, a humble house for one local who had just returned after 10 years labouring in Lebanon, or a fence for the shrine that was the town’s only showpiece – the tomb of Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik. The Ummayad caliph was buried under a mound of earth in 717, which over many centuries had somehow gro

At least 65,000 jihadi fighters could fill vacuum if Islamic State was defeated By  agencies More than half of the rebel fighters in Syria who are opposing President Bashar al-Assad are sympathetic to Islamic State views, a leading thinktank has claimed. The Centre on Religion and Geopolitics said efforts to wipe out Isis in Syria and Iraq would not end the global threat from jihadi groups because extremist views were common among Syrian fighters of all stripes. At least 15 militias, numbering 65,000 fighters, could fill any vacuum resulting from a defeat of Isis in Syria and Iraq by a coalition led by the US, a report by the thinktank found. About 60% of fighters in rebel factions in Syria identified with a religious and political ideology similar to that of the terror group, it added. The thinktank, run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, said: “The west risks making a strategic failure by focusing only on IS. Defeating it militarily will not end global jihadism.