ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By David Price With members of the CIA and NSA leaking materials on Michael Flynn’s communications with Russian officials, we are witnessing a slow boiling domestic coup that will transform American governance and the Executive Branch’s relationships with intelligence agencies. It remains to be seen whether these moves signal broader attacks on the Presidency by agencies long accustomed to taking out administrations threatening the Agency’s perceived interests. This moment tells us more about the CIA revolting against a particular administration than it does about Trump’s people engaging in unusually diabolical-illegal activities designed to undermine an outgoing administration. We know enough about Reagan’s pre-election dealings with Iran to know that the CIA and NSA knew about these transactions, yet these agencies were content to remain silent; apparently glad to see Carter ousted and welcoming a new era of unparalleled “peace time” military and intelligence spending. Similarly, Ame...

This map shows the military situation in Daraa. Pro-militant media sources dissiminate a fresh infographics allegedly depicting the casuatlies of the Syrian army during clashes in the Manshiyah neighborhood of the city of Daraa in southwestern Syria. According to the infographics, 30 government troops, including 12 officers, had been killed, 2 battle tanks, two 23mm guns and a buldozer belonging to the Syrian army had been destroyed. The joint forces of the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) had allegedly captured a 14,5mm gun and tank projectiles. Meanwhile, sporadic firefights have been ongoing in Manshiyah. Since launching an advance in the area earlier this month , the joint militant forces have seized a number of building from government troops. But the militant advance faced a deadlock and now sides are engaged in a positional warfare in an urban area.

Originally appeared at ZeroHedge Threatening to destabilize the tentative improvement in Sino-US relations achieved in recent days following Trump’s recent concession over the “One China” policy, was the US deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) to the disputed waters of the South China Sea on Saturday as part of maritime “routine operations”, according to an announcement posted on the Vinson’s Facebook page. Sailing with the 97,000-ton Vinson is the guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer, the Navy said in a statement. The Vinson carries a flight group of more than 60 aircraft, including F/A-18 jet fighters. The deployment comes just one day after China wrapped up its own naval exercises in the South China Sea on Friday, CNN reported . War games involving its own aircraft carrier have unnerved neighbors with which it has long-running territorial disputes. US aircraft carrier operations in the South China Sea are not unusual. Almost a year ago, the USS John C...

REUTERS/RODI SAID The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have seized 5 more villages from the ISIS terrorist group in Syria. On February 19, SDF units retook Bir Shamawi, Fetatish, Sabah al Khayr, Azman and Shuwayhan in the areas east of the ISIS self-proclaimed capital of Raqqah. These advances are a part of a wider effort aimed to isolate the ISIS stronghold and to set a foot-hold for a direct storm of the city. Meanwhile, ISIS continues to implement a mobile defensive approach, avoding a direct confrontation against SDF units, backed up by the US Special Forces and the US Air Force. Meanwhile, the terrorist group is preparing to defend the city of Raqqah itself.