ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

According to a researcher of the US Military Academy, the most effective weapon on the modern battlefield is concrete barriers. Photo: mwi.usma.edu Concrete is the most effective weapon on the modern battlefield, a former coach of the US Army, Major John Spencer, who is currently engaged in theoretical researches in the US Military Academy (USMA), also known as West Point, concluded. In his essay, posted on a website of the academy, Spencer unequivocally states that concrete barriers that are used in Iraq and Afghanistan today, have made to security of American soldiers, involved in these conflicts, much more than any other military hardware that they have, including the most complex ones. “Many soldiers deployed to Iraq became experts in concrete during their combat tours. Concrete is as symbolic to their deployments as the weapons they carried. No other weapon or technology has done more to contribute to achieving strategic goals of providing security, protecting populations, establ

A new photo, showing an upgraded variant of the BMP-1 infantry combat vehicle, was published online. Photo: twitter.com / MathieuMorant In recent months, the Syrian Army regularly demonstrates upgraded pieces of various armored vehicles. So, lately we can more and more often see fundamentally altered variant of the BMP-1 infantry combat vehicle , which in fact turned into an assault vehicle. At the beginning of this week a new photo of such a vehicle, which is in service in the Desert Hawks Brigade, was published in social media. The first unusual thing, which we can easily notice, is an armored cabin, mounted over the troop compartment and equipped with one or two machine guns. The photo clearly shows the Chinese W-85 heavy machine gun, which is currently in service of the Syrian Army . According to military experts, thanks to such a cabin an ability to monitor land environment was improved, and soldiers got an opportunity to respond to identified threats more quickly. In addition

AlMasdarNews reports: Reports have emerged that ISIS started withdrawing their heavy military equipment from from the towns of al-Qa’im, Rawah and Anah in Iraq’s Anbar province, to the Syrian desert city of Raqqa, which is also the terrorist groups defacto capital. Much of the equipment is rocket launchers, battle tanks and armored vehicles. This comes at a time when Mosul in Iraq’s Nineveh province is completely cut off from Syria and the terrorist group being battered by Iraqi forces, including the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shi’ite militias.