ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

LIVE messages and pictures of Sunni ISIS fighters dressed in Islamic attire circulated through social media network such as You Tube ostensibly authenticate the hostile agenda of the ISIS fighters to dismember Iraq by carving out a Sunni Islamic Caliphate stretching from Syria to the western Sunni heartlands in Anbar Province in Iraq. The usage of the state seal of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) on the ISIS flag as well for its Coat of Arms seemingly validates that ISIS are Sunni fighters. The rapid march of the ISIS towards Baghdad and its swift takeover of Mosul and Tikrit, and Baiji oil refinery, Fallujah and Ramadi in the Anbar Province, and seizure of border crossings into Syria and Jordan are presented by political analysts as a “civil war” fought along sectarian lines, Sunni Arabs versus Shiia Arabs. Added to this is the ethnically different Iraqi Kurds who have enjoyed semi-independence under the US patronage and are now on the verge of declaring complete independence from Baghdad....

Reuters / Khaled Abdullah Around 1,200 prisoners, including some Al-Qaeda suspects, managed to stage one of the biggest jailbreaks in years in Yemen’s south-eastern town of Taiz, after violence broke out and guards abandoned their posts, according to officials. “Groups of Al-Qaeda supporters ... today attacked the central prison in the city of Taiz and more than 1,200 of the dangerous prisoners escaped,” the Saba state news agency quoted a security official as saying. This marked one of the biggest prison escapes in the country in the last few years, signaling a lack of security, as various forces fight to gain control of the country. Another official confirmed to Reuters that some of those who escaped were “suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda,” adding that they were able to make their getaway as militias clashed in the city. “Heavy fighting took place near the central prison and the popular committees approached and seized control of the area, but Saleh’s forces opened the prison doors...

Reuters / Marko Djurica Even if Greece accepted all of the austerity measures demanded by its main creditors, the Troika, it still would not be able to make ends meet by 2030, according to IMF estimates revealed in a set of documents obtained by a German newspaper. The most optimistic scenario shows that Greece would face an unsustainable debt in 2030 even if it agreed to the package of tax increases and spending cuts proposed by the European commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF in exchange for a five-month €15.5bn loan from its creditors. These prospects were outlined in six documents that were part of the “final” proposal offered to Greece by the three main creditors on Friday. The papers were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and seen by The Guardian . The estimates provide support for Greece’s decision not to accept the bailout deal. They prove that for Greece to survive economically, it needs real debt relief measures, not austerity reforms. Accord...