ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation said that the Russian Air Force destroyed around 1,100 terrorist positions in Syria since the beginning of 2016. Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Forces Lt.Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, stated on Monday that within the first 10 days of 2016, the Russian Air Force carried out 311 sorties targeting 1,097 terrorist positions in the countryside of Damascus, Aleppo, Idleb, Lattakia, Hama, Homs, Deir Ezzor, Hasaka, Daraa, and Raqqa provinces. He said that the airstrikes targeted petroleum infrastructure controlled by terrorists, sites for extracting and refining oil, positions where terrorist groups were stationed, and military equipment, asserting that the airstrikes focus on weakening the capabilities of terrorist organizations and providing direct support to the Syrian Arab Army and other formations fighting ISIS. Rudskoy noted that the most significant successes in battle against terrorists we...

Deir Ezzor, SANA –ISIS terrorists committed a massacre in al-Bghailiye village in Deir Ezzor’s western countryside, claiming the lives of around 300 civilians, most of them women, children, and elderly people, Local sources told SANA. The Cabinet condemned the heinous crime, with Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi saying that the legal and moral responsibility for this barbaric and cowardly massacre committed by ISIS hordes lies on the shoulders of all the states that support terrorism and that fund and armor Takfiri organizations which harbor hatred for all humanity. The Premier said that terrorist organizations are committing massacres to make up for the recurring losses and defeats they suffer at the hands of the Syrian Arab Army, and that these terror organizations know that their days in Syria are numbered. He said that such massacres will not dissuade Syrians from pursuing reconciliations and working to liberate the entirety of Syrian territories, offering condolences to the familie...

The defense ministry’s representative said over recent five years the organization’s head and sole employee was the man called Ossama Suleiman, who moved to the UK in 2000 after having served three prison terms in Syria and who took the nickname of Rami Abdurrahman. By Igor Konashenkov General Konashenkov said the ministry has found out who is behind the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which distributes information blackmailing the Russian Aerospace Force grouping in Syria. According to the official, the man moved to the United Kingdom after serving three terms in Syria. "The first throwing-in of false information about claimed victims in the Russian air strikes appeared in social networks and some western media well before our mission in the Syrian Arab Republic began," he said. "Most information was distributed on behalf of so-called ‘Syrian human rights activists’." In "distribution" of the statements made by those "human rights activis...