ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

by   MATTHEW HOH Photo by DVIDSHUB |  CC BY 2.0 There has never been progress by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, unless you are asking the U.S. military contractors or the Afghan drug barons, of whom an extremely large share are our allies in the Afghan government, militias and security forces, there has only been suffering and destruction. American politicians, pundits and generals will speak about “progress” made by the 70,000 American troops put into Afghanistan by President Obama beginning in 2009, along with an additional 30,000 European troops and 100,000 private contractors, however the hard and awful true reality is that the war in Afghanistan has only escalated since 2009, never stabilizing or deescalating; the Taliban has increased in strength by tens of thousands, despite tens of thousands of casualties and prisoners; and American and Afghan casualties have continued to grow every year of the conflict, with U.S. casualties declining only when U...

Jim Hollander / Reuters On August 25, Taliban militants entered Khas Uruzgan district in central Afghanistan after they had overrun all the Afghani Army positions around it, according to Afghani sources. However, until now Taliban fighters didn’t impose their full control over the district. According to the Taliban media wing, Voice of Jihad, the Khas Uruzgan district administration center and police headquarter are now sieged by Taliban fighters. Taliban fighters killed 4 Afghani policemen and captured two Humvee vehicles and several pickup trucks during the attack, according to Afghani sources. During the last month Talibn captured 11 district centers in Afghanistan. The Afghani Army even with the US-led coalition support was only able to recapture 2 district centers. Moreover, Voice of Jihad announced that Taliban fighters attacked several checkpoints of the Afghani Army in Tagab Shan, Gawki and Jar Kala areas of Guriwan district. Taliban fighters captured the checkpoin...

On Saturday, a report of the UK-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper claimed that an agreement was reached between Hezbollah and ISIS at the Syrian-Lebanese border. According to the supposed agreement, ISIS fighters will be allowed to withdraw to Deir Ezzor governorate in Syria. Asharq al-Awsat claimed that between 50 and 350 ISIS fighters are left on the Syrian-Lebanese border. Although the Lebanese and Syrian attacks slowed down on Saturday. No official sources confirmed Asharq al-Awsat claims. Meanwhile, the Hezbollah media wing in Syria announced that Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) captured Shmaies Tm al-Mal in the Western Qalamoun region. From its side, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) continued to shell ISIS positions in Martabiah valley. In a separate development, the Lebanese Intelligence arrested, Hassan Hamad al-Hassan, an ISIS member. Lebanese authorities accused al-Hassn of planning an assassination of a high ranking officer of the LAF. Al-Hassn had alle...

On Saturday, the Homs countryside operation room announced in an official statement that it kicked out Jaish al-Tawhid. The operation room said that Jaish al-Tawhid “broke the red lines agreed upon by the room’s groups” with no further explanations. The Homs countryside operation room includes US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups like Jaish al-Izzah. The operation room rejected the de-escalation agreement in the northern Homs countryside. Click to see the full-size image Furthermore, local sources claimed that Jaish al-Tawhid was kicked out of the room mainly for joining the de-escalation agreement earlier. Many US-backed FSA groups and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have been working to sabotage the de-escalation agreement in the northern Homs countryside. However, they have not achieved any notable success so far. On Saturday, the Syrian Arab Army accused these groups of shelling Qarmas and Maryamen villages in the northern Homs countryside. According to pro-government s...