ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

by JONATHAN COOK Photo by Swithun Crowe | CC BY 2.0 Nazareth. The Israeli parliament passed the legalisation law on Monday night – a piece of legislation every bit as suspect as its title suggests. The law widens the powers of Israeli officials to seize the final fragments of Palestinian land in the West Bank that were supposed to be off-limits. Palestinian leaders warned that the law hammered the last nail in the coffin of a two-state solution. Government ministers gleefully agreed. For them, this is the extension of Israeli law into the West Bank and the first step towards its formal annexation. The legalisation law – also commonly translated from Hebrew as the regulation or validation law – was the right’s forceful response to the eviction last week of a few dozen families from a settlement “outpost” called Amona. It was a rare and brief setback for the settlers, provoked by a court ruling that took three years to enforce. The evacuation of 40 families was transformed into an expens...

Click to see the full-size image Originally appeared at Sputniknews Daesh has identified a weak spot in Germany’s legendary Leopard 2 battle tanks, and has destroyed ten of the machines used by the Turkish Army in northern Syria, the German newspaper Die Welt reported. Battles in Afghanistan and elsewhere have earned Germany’s Leopard 2 battle tank a reputation for being indestructible. In one case, Canadian forces managed to drive a Leopard through a massive Taliban bomb blast and survive. However, Turkish troops fighting the terrorist group Daesh in northern Syria have had a different experience. According to reports, Daesh fighters in the city of Al Bab have destroyed ten Leopard 2A4 battle tanks. Searching for answers, some German bloggers have speculated that leadership failures or a lack of experience among Turkish troops may be to blame. However, the fundamental issue appears to be whether the 60 ton tanks are suitable for use in an urban environment, the German newspaper Di...

A video, showing the T-90K tank, operating in Syria, has been published online. Photo: YouTube / الاعلام الحربي المركزي A video, showing the T-90K tank, operating during a battle, has been published on an official Youtube channel of the Syrian Army . The T-90K is a rare commander’s version of the T-90 tank, characterized by its high mobility and equipped with a special set of communication and navigation tools. The fact that the Russian T-90 tank, also known as ‘Vladimir’, takes part in the Syrian war is not a secret. The government army adopted a “classical” modification of the T-90, as well as its improved version, the T-90A. These well-proven tanks have many times become heroes of combat video reports. However, the commander’s T-90K tank was captured on video for the first time. Though, that is not surprising. As military expert Aleksey Khlopotov told the Vestnik Mordovii informational website, only two such tanks were produced. They were a part of the first batch of tanks...

A squad of women of the Islamic State terrorist group has tortured to death a 10-year-old Iraqi girl for the crime of going outside without an escort. Photo: Reuters / Thaier Al-Sudani Members of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group tortured to death a 10-year-old Iraqi girl, living in occupied Mosul city, the UK Daily Mail newspaper reported. The little girl, whose name was Faten, was killed with iron fangs in front of her mother for the crime of going outside without an escort. According to the newspaper, the murder of the kid was committed by a squad of women working as the hisbah (morality police) for the IS’s all-woman Al-Khansaa Brigade. Reportedly, Faten was helping to clean her house and accidentally stepped outside of the house. ‘Morality policewomen’ said that this was a transgression of Islamic law that should have been punished with a certain number of ‘bites’. They offered the girl’s mother to endure the punishment on behalf of her daughter. However, the woman refused...