ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (8:25 P.M.) – Twelve somewhat worrisome images were released by Amaq Agency on Thursday, showcasing a jihadist training camp at an undisclosed in Southeast Asia. Wielding state-of-the-art armaments, the Islamic State insurgents are depicted undergoing extensive training in an open field, likely in the Philippines: Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Chris Tomson  | Al-Masdar News Amaq Agency did not specify in which Southeast Asia country the photos were taken; however, an ISIS franchise group has been active in the Philippines since late 2015.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (2:00 A.M.) – This evening, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) mobilized its soldiers for a renewed push in northern Hama, targeting a rural area south of Lataminah. Spearheaded by the 4th Division, 8th Division, 5th Legion and National Defence Forces, government assault troops captured the Zaleen checkpoint and overran Ard Zaleen in an area just two kilometers south of Lataminah. According to Al-Masdar News field correspondent Ibrahim Joudeh, some 40 fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were killed and an estimated 50 militants injured during clashes over the past 48 hours that also involved  three failed rebel attacks  on the  newly liberated  village of Zalaqiyat. The latest government advances caused Jaish Al-Nasr and Jaish Al-Izza to regroup for the all-important defense of Lataminah, reducing the fields between the Islamist stronghold and SAA troops to de facto no man’s land. While listening in over walkie-talkie, the SAA heard FSA com...

How Americans Remember (and Forget) Their Wars By John Dower  Some years ago, a newspaper article credited a European visitor with the wry observation that Americans are charming because they have such short memories. When it comes to the nation’s wars, however, he was not entirely on target. Americans embrace military histories of the heroic “band of [American] brothers” sort, especially involving World War II. They possess a seemingly boundless appetite for retellings of the Civil War, far and away the country’s most devastating conflict where American war deaths are concerned. Certain traumatic historical moments such as “the Alamo” and “Pearl Harbor” have become code words -- almost mnemonic devices -- for reinforcing the remembrance of American victimization at the hands of nefarious antagonists. Thomas Jefferson and his peers actually established the baseline for this in the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which enshrines recollection of “th...

By John Pilger Filming undercover in East Timor in 1993 I followed a landscape of crosses: great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses marching down the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They littered the earth and crowded the eye. The inscriptions on the crosses revealed the extinction of whole families, wiped out in the space of a year, a month, a day.  Village after village stood as memorials.Kraras is one such village. Known as the  "village of the widows" , the population of 287 people was murdered by Indonesian troops. Using a typewriter with a faded ribbon, a local priest had recorded the name, age, cause of death and date of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. It was evidence of genocide. I still have this document, which I find difficult to put down, as if the blood of East Timor is fresh on its pages. On the list is the dos Anjos family. In 1987,...

FILE IMAGE Reports from various pro-government sources argue that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has managed to capture the village of Beit Naim in the southwestern part of the Estern Ghouta region near Dammascus. So far, SF can only confirm that the SAA has managed to capture some 6 points that had belonged to Jaish al-Islam in the village. From its side, Jaish al-Islam released a statement claiming that the group had repelled an attack of the SAA on the village. Pro-militant sources also reported about intense strikes by the Syrian Air Force and artillery units on the village before it was stormed by the SAA. Jaish al-Islam also claimed that its members managed to destroy a T-72 tank of the SAA. Click to see the full-size image During the past few days, Beit Naim witnessed violent clashes between Jaish al-Islam and the Al-Majdi Brigades, which recently joined the Al-Rahman Corps. Thus, it seems that the SAA decided to take advantage of  the ongoing infighting amo...