ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has killed more than 100 civilians in a 24-hour rampage through the Kurdish town of Kobane in what a monitor group described as one of the group's "worst massacres" in Syria. Women and children were among the slain civilians whose bodies were found in their homes and in the streets, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "According to medical sources and Kobane residents, 120 civilians were executed by ISIL in their homes or killed by the group's rockets or snipers," Rami Abdelrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told AFP news agency on Friday. "When they entered the town, the jihadists took up positions in buildings at the southeast and southwest entrances, firing at everything that moved." "We heard gunshots at 5am. We went out to the street and saw people lying on the ground, shot and killed. Bodies and blood everywhere. Mahmoud Muslim, survivor Turkish officials s...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.(Reuters / John Stillwell) The United States has unparalleled surveillance capabilities that it uses to spy on the entire world, including its allies, to boost its competitiveness, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a Russian TV channel. “The US is a surveillance superpower,” he told Rossiya-1 in an interview, slated to be broadcast later on Sunday. “This country spends on surveillance 60 percent of what the entire world spends on espionage,” he said.“They spy on everyone, including their allies. And use the information for their political and economic goals.” Earlier, WikiLeaks released classified NSA document apparently proving the intelligence agency had been spying on top French officials, including three consecutive presidents. US President Barack Obama and State Secretary Kerry assured that no such activities had taken place. Assange insists the documents released by the whistleblower website are proof enough. New data on the issue is to be rel...

Reuters Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has executed more than 3,000 people in Syria alone, of which 1,700 were civilians, since the group proclaimed themselves as a caliphate on the territories of Syria and Iraq as of June 29, 2014, a monitor group said. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group told AFP it had documented a total 3,027 confirmed executions by IS, including 1,787 civilians, 74 among of them children. About half the civilians killed were from the Syrian Sunni Shaitat tribe, and 930 more victims were from a clan in Deir Ezzor, which faced mass executions after rebelling against Islamic State last year. The death toll also includes victims of a recent IS attack on the Kurdish town of Kobani, which claimed the lives of 223 people this week. During the year since the IS declared the “caliphate,” the group has executed 216 members of rival rebel fractions and Kurdish fighters, as well as about 900 government troops, the Syrian Observatory for H...