ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

IRBIL, IRAQ — The video opens with high-definition footage shot from a drone flying over an oil refinery in central Iraq, but this video isn’t from a multi-million-dollar American drone. It’s from a drone operated by the Islamic State that likely cost a few thousand dollars. And the refinery – Iraq’s largest – is held by government forces, who have been besieged by the militants for the better part of a year. The video, called “Defiant Attack on the Apostates at the Refinery,” began appearing on jihadist-linked websites and Twitter accounts last week. It heralded an Islamic State assault on the oil refinery at Baiji, where Iraqi government soldiers have held out since last summer against surrounding Islamic State troops. In the end, the government kept hold of the refinery, the country’s largest, with the help of 47 airstrikes by the United States and a massive influx of Iraqi reinforcements. But beyond the outcome of the refinery battle, military analysts who’ve viewed the video find ...

By Rostislav Ishchenko Foreword by the Saker: The analysis below is, by far, the best I have seen since the beginning of the conflict in the Ukraine. I have regularly posted analyses by Ishchenko on this blog before, because I considered him as one of the best analysts in Russia. This time, however, Ishchenko has truly produced a masterpiece: a comprehensive analysis of the geostrategic position of Russia and a clear and, I believe, absolutely accurate analysis of the entire “Putin strategy” for the Ukraine. I have always said that this conflict is not about the Ukraine but about the future of the planet and that there is no “Novorussian” or even “Ukrainian” solution, but that the only possible outcome is a strategic victory of either Russia or the USA which will affect the entire planet. Ishchenko does a superb overview of the risks and options for both sides and offers the first comprehensive “key” to the apparentlyincomprehensible behavior of Russia in this conflict. Finally, Ish...

Anti-government protesters carry an injured man on a stretcher after clashes with riot police in the Independence Square in Kiev February 20, 2014. (Reuters / Yannis Behrakis) Snipers who are thought to have operated in Kiev’s Independence Square amidst events that led to a coup in February 2014 were trained in Poland and sent to Ukraine to “do a favor” for the US, a Polish Euro-MP claimed in an interview. On February 20, 2014, riot police trying to restrain anti-government demonstrators on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev suddenly retreated up the street from whence they had come. As the protesters rushed forward, gunfire suddenly broke out, with many witnesses saying it was a sniper attack. In some two hours, 46 people were killed. A year after the tragedy that provoked a huge backlash from the Ukrainians, ultimately leading to the rapid toppling of then-President Viktor Yanukovich, the events on the square are still pending investigation. Several Berkut riot police officers have bee...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets Korean People's Army.(Reuters / KCNA) North Korea could already possess up to 20 nuclear warheads and have a capacity to double its arsenal by next year, according to Chinese nuclear experts, the Wall Street Journal reports. Previous US estimates had put the total between 10 and 16. In April, the head of the US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, Admiral William Gortney, said the US military believes Pyongyang is capable of launching an ICBM with a nuclear warhead from a hard-to-track mobile launcher at the US West Coast. N Korea capable of launching ‘mobile’ nuke missile into US – NORAD “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 [ballistic missile] and shoot it at the homeland. We assess that it’s operational today, and so we practice to go against it,” Gortney said. At the start of 2015 the US-Korea Institute at the John Hopkins University presented three scenarios of North Kor...