ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Over the course of the last four or so weeks, the media has paid quite a bit of attention to Islamic State’s lucrative trade in “stolen” crude. On November 16, in a highly publicized effort, US warplanes destroyed 116 ISIS oil trucks in Syria. 45 minutes prior, leaflets were dropped advising drivers (who Washington is absolutely sure are not ISIS members themselves) to “get out of [their] trucks and run away.” The peculiar thing about the US strikes is that it took The Pentagon nearly 14 months to figure out that the most effective way to cripple Islamic State’s oil trade is to bomb… the oil. Prior to November, the US “strategy” revolved around bombing the group’s oil infrastructure. As it turns out, that strategy was minimally effective at best and it’s not entirely clear that an effort was made to inform The White House, Congress, and/or the public about just how little damage the airstrikes were actually inflicting. There are two possible explanations as to why Centcom may have so...

As we pointed out a week ago, even before the downing of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16, the most important question that nobody had asked about ISIS is where is the funding for the terrorist organization coming from, and more importantly, since everyone tacitly knows where said funding is coming from (as we have revealed in an ongoing series of posts “Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President”, “How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence” and “ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: “Raqqa’s Rockefellers”, Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection”) few on the US-led Western Alliance have done anything to stop the hundreds of millions in oil sale proceeds from funding the world’s best organized terrorist group. We concluded by asking “how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost...

Two Turkish generals and a colonel were detained on Saturday for intercepting Syria-bound trucks that belonged to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the newspaper Today’s Zaman reported. In January 2014, Ankara Gendarmerie Major-General Ibrahim Aydin, former Adana Gendarmerie Brigadier-General Hamza Celepoglu and former Gendarmerie Criminal Laboratory Head Colonel Burhanettin Cihangiroglu stopped Syrian-bound trucks in southern Turkey after they received information from an anonymous source that the trucks were illegally carrying weapons to militants in Syria. When the information about the trucks became public, MIT officials and high-ranking Turkish politicians, including President Recep Teyyip Erdogan, who was Prime Minister back then, and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, then the country’s foreign minister, were furious that the gendarmes stopped the trucks and said the Syria-bound trucks were carrying “humanitarian aid” to Turkmen living just south of Turkey, the new...

Terroist group Islamic State earns millions of dollars selling oil on the black market in Turkey, Iraqi MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie told RT. He also revealed that wounded terrorists are being treated in Turkish hospitals. “In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price,” Mowaffak al Rubaie said in an interview with RT. “Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market.” “Money and dollars generated by selling Iraqi and Syrian oil on the Turkish black market is like the oxygen supply to ISIS and it’s operation,”...

A large cargo of shotguns without transportation permits has been seized by the Italian police at the Port of Trieste. The 847 Turkish-made Winchester shotguns worth about €500,000 were on their way to Belgium. The weapons were declared along with other cargoes destined for Germany and the Netherlands on a Dutch-registered truck driven by a Turkish citizen. Gun shipments from Turkey are nothing new in Trieste, but this time the shipment was missing a key document: authorization for transportation in the EU. The shipment consisted of 847 pump-action Winchester shotguns: 781 SXP 12-51 and 66 SXP 12-47 models, La Stampa reports . Italian police seize 800 guns from Turkey Shipment of 800 guns coming from Turkey seized by Italian police. Final destination was Belgium. Posted by  RT Play  on 27 ноября 2015 г. “A major seizure,” the chief prosecutor of Trieste, Carlo Mastelloni, commented, stressing that the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Police) “have done well for enc...

By Anastassios Adamopoulos - Following the controversial takedown of a Russian Air Force aircraft by Turkish F-16 authorities, Wikileaks has released figures on Turkish violations of Greek airspace. A Wikileaks tweet, citing data compiled by the University of Thessaly, based on Greek military records, alleges that Turkey violated Greek airspace 2,444 times in 2014 alone, while there are 636 such violations in 2013. A United States classified cable, also released by Wikileaks on Tuesday, reports that in June 2005, the then Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis told the American Ambassador that Turkish aircrafts did not have to fly 40 times per day over disputed airspace to get their political point across and could instead limit it down to one flight per week. Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Kotzias held a phone conversation with Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Lavrov on Tuesday evening, that included discussions on Tuesday’s incident as well as the war in Syria, ...

Are we at risk of being victims or casualties in a government cyberwar? In the first of this three-part series, we explore what the experts say about the current state of cyberwar -- and what it means to IT departments everywhere. Insider Threats: 10 Ways To Protect Your Data(Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Cyberwar is an ugly word, not only because of what it implies, but because the term is ill-defined. It's suggestive of digital attacks alone. That's simply not the case. It is far more likely that cyberattacks would be only one form of aggression in the otherwise familiar hells of war. The biggest question of all, for corporations and citizens alike, is: Are we here in the US simply in the midst of informal nation-state aggression, or are we in a full-fledged cyberwar? The distinction between the two situations may not matter for IT's purposes, since neither poses a serious threat to corporations. Nonetheless, it's important to understand the nature of th...

A Russian Su-24 front-line bomber jet takes off at Latakia airport, Syria. © Dmitriy Vinogradov / Sputnik A Russian Su-24M tactical bomber was brought down over Syria by a Turkish Air Force fighter jet on Tuesday. Moscow and Ankara have put forward conflicting versions of what happened, and the circumstances of the crash remain under investigation. This is what is known so far. 1. The Russian jet went down at 9:30am local time on Tuesday “Today at 9:30 the Russian aircraft, which performed combat counterterrorist missions was shot down by an aircraft of the Turkish Air Force,” Russia's Ministry of Defense wrote on its official Facebook page. The ministry added that it considers the action of the Turkish Air Force to be an “unfriendly act.” Defence Attaché at the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Russia was urgently summoned to the Russian Ministry of...Posted by Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on Tuesday, November 24, 2015 2. It crashed in a rebel-held area i...

Russian warplane shot down at Syria-Turkey border LIVE UPDATES Two Su-24 planes approached Turkish airspace on Tuesday morning, a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of the UN Security Council said. The Russian planes are described in a document, published by WikiLeaks and Al Jazeera, as aircraft “the nationality of which is unknown.” The letter allegedly from Turkish UN Ambassador Halit Cevik reiterates Ankara’s claim that the two planes were “warned 10 times during a period of five minutes via ‘emergency’ channels” to change direction. “Disregarding these warnings, both planes, at an altitude of 19,000 feet, violated Turkish national airspace to a depth of 1.36 miles and 1.15 miles in length for 17 seconds from 9:24:05 local time,” the leaked document said. One of the planes then left the Turkish airspace, while “plane two was fired at while in Turkish airspace by Turkish F-16s,” Cevik allegedly wrote.  This provided ground for Tu...

Russian tanks armored against anti-tank missiles and ground forces began to enter northern Syria via a military airfield in Aleppo, Lebanese newspaper "As-Safir" affiliated with Hezbollah reported. The newspaper estimated that the airport will be the third in which Russian Air Force aircraft will be deployed. The situation is ongoing. UPDATES to follow ( via ynetnews.com ). 

Vladimir Putins massive,triple-decker war room revealed.November 21, 2015.MOSCOW "Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the war room!"It could have been a scene straight out of "Dr. Strangelove" when President Vladimir V. Putin stepped into the Russian Ministry of Defense's brand new, three-tiered, multibillion-dollar control center this week, for a war briefing that had its fair share of movie-like pageantry.The fortified National Control Defense Center was Putin's first stop after officials confirmed that the Russian charter jet crash that claimed 224 lives last month was the result of an act of terror. On movie-theater-size screens, live broadcasts showed long-range strategic bombers taking off from Russian air bases to fly sorties over Syria. Putin instructed commanders in Syria to "make contact with the French and work with them as allies" as Russia seeks a central role in a proposed anti-terrorist coalition..But the real st...

Explosions after airstrikes carried out by Russian Air Force on an Islamic State training camp in the Syrian province of Idlib. © Russian Defence Ministry / AFP Russian airstrikes have torched more than 1,000 tankers taking stolen crude oil to Islamic State refineries. This blow against the jihadists comes as the Russian Air Force has hit 472 terrorist targets in two days in Syria, making 141 sorties. All Russian aircraft have successfully returned to the Khmeimim airbase near Latakia, Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said in a daily briefing. In the last two days, Russian warplanes have been conducting active supplemental reconnaissance, inflicting pinpoint airstrikes on newly exposed targets, he added. “Russian bombers taking off from the Khmeimim airbase flew on combat missions to destroy tanker convoys and oil refineries in the areas of oilfields in the north and east of Syria,” Konashenkov said. “A major oil depot was destroyed 15 kilo...

Written by Daniel Deiss and Igor Pejic Spreading from the Caspian Sea in the West to China in the East, occupying more than one million square miles, Kazakhstan is one of the largest countries in the world with the population only about 17 million consists of many ethnic groups: Kazakh 51%; Russian 32%; Ukrainian 5%; German 2%; Tatar 2%; Uzbek 13%. Today country becomes a core security and geostrategic factor in the Central Asia region. After the fall of the Soviet Union the country’s military had some staggering periods, but today Kazakhstan’s armed forces meet the highest professional standards mostly thanks to Russia and CSTO as well as to the good national military governance. The cumulative military budget 2013-2015 has reached almost seven billion dollars. The Kazakhstan’s army modernization is based on a domestic military industry. As the President Nursultan Nazarbayev stated: “about 70% of the modern weapons and equipment supplied to the army in 2015 should be produced by the...

The UN Security Council is expected to pass the French resolution to fight the ‘common enemy’ as China and Russia are thought unlikely to use their vetoes AFP/Getty World powers are poised to forge a single resolution at the United Nations Security Council to declare a common war against Isis and “eradicate” jihadists in Iraq and Syria, The Independent understands. The attacks in Paris as well as the downing of the Russian jet over the Sinai Peninsula have galvanised a hitherto divided Security Council. And a new reality exists: with its alleged execution this week of a Chinese national, Isis has now slaughtered citizens of all five permanent Security Council members. French officials said they were formally submitting a draft resolution to the Security Council, pushing aside a competing draft offered by Russia earlier this week. It could be adopted as early as Friday or over the weekend. The French manoeuvre reflected confidence that its resolution would not provoke Russian or...

By The Saker Just has I had been predicting for a couple of weeks, Russia did dramatically increase the pace of her anti-Daesh operations. First, Russia has used all her most powerful long-range aviation bombers (Tu-22M3, Tu-95MC and even Tu-160) to strike Daesh targets with cruise missiles and gravity bombs. Look at this footage which really says it all: Second, Russia has announced that 25 long range bombers will be fully allocated to the anti-Daesh campaign. Third, the Russian military has announced that another 37 aircraft will be send to reinforce the Russian contingent in Syria (including the most advanced aircraft in the Russian inventory, the SU-34). The combination of these long-range bombers from Russia and additional 37 aircraft in Syria will more than double the strike potential of the Russian military against Daesh. Thus, this is a major expansion of Russian operations against Daesh. Finally, Putin has declared that he has ordered the Russian naval task force to ‘coopera...

Islamic State has a branch devoted to creating chemical weapons, AP reports, citing Iraqi and US officials. Earlier, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also warned that Islamic State could potentially use chemical or biological weapons in its attacks. A special branch has been set up by Islamic State to develop chemical weapon for the terrorist group using scientists from Iraq and Syria as well as other countries in the region, AP reported, citing Iraqi and US intelligence sources. Although Islamic State has already used mustard gas on the battlefield, US intelligence agencies are skeptical about the terrorists’ capabilities to produce sophisticated chemical weapons suited for a potential terrorist attack. At the same time, Iraqi officials warned that control over vast territories in Iraq and Syria gives the militants many opportunities for experiments, leaving Iraq’s forces largely unaware of the Islamic State actions. "They [Islamic State] now have complete freedom to select loc...