ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Many people have been killed and wounded in a blast that rocked central Kabul during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, President Ashraf Ghani said. Afghanistan's Tolo News channel said at least 28 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the coordinated attack. The attack, claimed by the Taliban, apparently targeted the offices of Afghanistan's main security agency. In a statement, the Presidential Palace condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms," saying a number of people had been killed or wounded. A spokesman for an emergency hospital in the city told Reuters that the facility had received eight lightly wounded Afghan soldiers. A thick plume of black smoke was seen rising from the vicinity of the sprawling US embassy in the Afghan capital after the powerful blast. Warning sirens were sounded at the embassy compound, which is also close to NATO headquarters in Afghanistan. An Afghan official said a possible bomber carried out the attack ...

China says it has sent a military aircraft to one of its controversial islands in the South China Sea in order to evacuate workers wounded during construction work there. The Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement posted on its website that the plane was on patrol on Sunday when it was ordered to head to the Fiery Cross Reef island to evacuate three workers and fly them to the country’s southernmost island province of Hainan for treatment. China has reportedly transformed Fiery Cross Reef into a man-made island. It sent three commercial jets to the island in January after the runway on the island was completed. In recent years, China has built major structures, including radar systems and air strips, over reefs and outcrops. The move, however, has drawn criticism from regional countries as well as the United States, which accuse Beijing of undergoing a massive “land reclamation” program in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea. Washington claims that Beijing’s alleged ...

Why are we asking this now? A British Airways pilot has revealed his flight was struck by a suspected drone as it came in to land at Heathrow Airport. Flight BA727 landed safety with 132 passengers and five crew on board. After being examined by engineers, it was cleared for its next flight. However, the collision has raised concern about the use of drones, especially around sensitive areas such as airports. Why are people worried? The number of near misses involving drones and aeroplanes has quadrupled in the last year, a report released by the UK Airprox Board in March found. Of 23 near misses recorded between April and October last year, 12 were given an A rating of "a serious risk of collision". The aviation industry is fastidious about eliminating so-called FODs (Foreign Object Debris) from the “airside” area at airports. The dangers from debris were highlighted most tragically in the Air France Concorde crash in 2000, when a thin titanium strip left behind on the ru...

The international community is ready to help Libya’s unity government with security training, British foreign minister Philip Hammond said on a visit to Tripoli on Monday. Meanwhile, the EU’s foreign and defence ministers gathering in Luxembourg for what is called a “jumbo” meeting on the new major subject of worry: Libya. Two of them, the German and French foreign ministers, have visited the country on Saturday, assuring Libya’s new U.N.-brokered unity government has the international community and Europe’s full support. The visit by Steinmeier and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault followed a Thursday visit by the ambassadors of France, Britain and Spain who pledged to reopen embassies closed two years ago because of instability in the country. Britain is one of several countries to try to train Libyan security forces abroad after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, but the efforts stalled until now amid militia infighting and political squabbles. An earlier training scheme in...