ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Click to see the full-size image. Source: https://twitter.com/LCarabinier On November 12, Arez Abdullah, head of the parliamentary bloc of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) announced that the PUK will be running in the upcoming Iraqi Parliament elections (scheduled for May 15, 2018) according to a report of the Kurdish media outlet Rudaw. The PUK was formed in 1975 by a group of Kurdish politics who defected from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Jalal Talabani was among them. He later became the first president of Iraq after Saddam was removed. After Talabani death on October 3, 2017, his son Bafel Talabani succeeded him as the de-facto leader of the PUK. The PUK party is very popular in western Kurdistan Region, epically in the party’s heartland, Sulaymaniyah city. Today, the party has 21 MPs in the Iraqi Parliament and only 18 in the Kurdistan Region Parliament. However, it’s still considered the second biggest Kurdish party in Iraq. Meanwhile, the head of elect...

The Saudi Authorities arrested Prince Bandar bin Sultan as a part of  the anti-corruption” purge that was launched by Saudi Arabia King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman , according to a report of the Middle East Eye (MEE) online news portal. Prince Bandar is a former Saudi ambassador to the US, and he is known to be a friend of former US President George W Bush, and former Syrian president Hafez Assad. Prince Bandar become really famous in 2011 when he was tasked with leading the Saudi efforts to fight Syria president Bashar al-Assad. Prince Bandar quickly become known as “the engineer of the Syria war” after he organized everything about the war, from the political opposition to armed groups in Syria. According to many reports the Prince was behind shipping tons of weapons and thousands of Jihadists from all over the world to feed the war against the Syrian government. The engineer of the Syrian war went to great length while trying t...

On November 12, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement reached a ceasefire agreement, according to the HTS-linked news agency Iba’a. The source said that the ceasefire is sponsored by leaders of the local tribes. Earlier, public figures from Atarib town in the western Aleppo countryside called on Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement to stop the clashes, and stressed that the locals will defend their areas from any attackers this time. Before the ceasefire took place, Iba’a announced that the Ajnad al-Sham armed group joined HTS. In an official statement, Ajnad al-Sham said that it chose  to be a part of “the Sunni body”. Meanwhile, the Hezbollah media wing in Syria revealed that 100 fighters were killed in the clashes between HTS and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement in the western Aleppo countryside. The high number of casualties suggests that the groups will likel...

The USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz and their multi-ship strike groups are participating in military exercises off the Korean Peninsula. The exercises started on November 11 and are set to end on November 14. It is the first time three of the US aircraft carriers have sailed together in more than a decade. A US nuclear sumbarine has been also deployed in the region, according to reports. In turn, North Korea described US President Donald Trump as a “destroyer” who “begged for nuclear war”. “His current trip [Asia tour] to our surrounding region is a warmonger’s visit for confrontation to rid the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) of its self-defensive nuclear deterrence,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement published by Korean Central News Agency. Donald J. Trump   ✔ @realDonaldTrump Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me "old," when I would NEVER call him "short and...