ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

What if you could control the weather?   It’s a question that has exercised mankind for millennia.   Now evidence has emerged that the US Intelligence community is funding climate research in what a leading climate scientist fears is a step towards controlling and weaponizing weather. Professor Alan Robock, a climate scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has revealed in a recent conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San José how three years ago he received a telephone call from two men who claimed to be working for the CIA.  Apparently they said: “we are working for the CIA and would like to know if some other country was controlling our climate would we be able to detect it?” Robock said he was scared by the call revealing that he thought that the CIA operatives were also wondering “if we wanted to control someone else’s climate could  they  detect it?” Further evidence of the CIA’s interest in clim...

Security forces inspect the site of a suicide attack outside the Shia mosque [Massoud Hossaini/AP] On September 29, an ISIS suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, according to the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq. According to Amaq, 50 civilians were killed or injured in the attack. From its side, Afghanistan Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said that the suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Qala-e-Fathullah area in Kabul city at around 2pm local time. According to Danish, 6 civilians were killed and 30 others were injured. Danish also announced that 3 suspects linked to the attack were arrested by the Afghan Police. In a separated development, the Taliban news agency Voice of Jihad announced that Taliban fighters attacked and captured a checkpoint of the Afghan Army in Kunsak area of Bala Baluk district in Farah province in western Afghanistan. Voice of Jihad said that 9 Afghan soldiers were killed, and 3 other were captured in the attack. ...

On Friday, ISIS fighters captured 5 checkpoints of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) near al-Sukhnah town in the eastern Homs countryside, according to the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq. The media also claimed that ISIS fighters captured al-Qualya’a village and its gas station south of al-Sukhnah town. Moreover, Amaq even claimed that ISIS fighters capture the al-Hail gas field east of Palmyra city. Amaq went on and claimed that ISIS fighters attacked the SAA positions in al-Qaryatayn town southwest of Palmyra. Pro-government sources claim that at least the attack of ISIS sleeper cells on al-Qaryatayn have been repelled. On other frontlines, the situation remains unclear. Clashes near the T-3 station: According to Amaq, ISIS fighters killed 40 SAA soldiers around al-Sukhnah, and 34 other in the T-3 station on Friday. Amaq also said that ISIS captured the following weapons from the SAA: two battle tanks; two BMP-1 vehicles; two 122mm artillery pieces; two 23mm guns; a Korne...

FILE IMAGE: A Kurdish Peshmerga forces member (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) The Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will declare an independence of Iraqi Kurdistan unilaterally, if the Iraqi Federal Government does not enter negotiations on the terms and condictions of this move, Vahal Ali, director of communications in the office of Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said on September 29. Ali blamed the Iraqi government for a “very aggressive” stance towards the independence referendum as well as for Baghdad’s threats to cut the KRG oil pipeline to Turkey and  the air flights ban over the region , according to  the New York Times (NYT) . “We are hopeful that these are all temporary measures,” the NYT quoted Ali as saying. “ We want this to be a peaceful transition, but if Baghdad decides not, there is a lot we can also  do.” Barzani’s spokesman emphasized that Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted in favor of independence ...