ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

In North Africa the Winds are Changing Too Often PHOTO: zastavki.com Written by  Evgeny Satanovsky The approaching end to the Syrian civil war, the Iraqi Kurdish loss of Kirkuk after the referendum on independence, the crisis in the GCC over Qatar and the approaching change of leadership in Algeria and Saudi Arabia, tied up in the Yemeni war, occupy much of the world’s media focus. The events in the Sahel, Sudan and Eastern Africa in general are in the shadows of the “news of the first order”. Meanwhile in the region there is an acute rivalry between external players. The present article, describing the situation in the Sahel, Sudan and Eastern Africa is based on materials from the Middle East Institute expert A.A. Bystrov. Timely Beating of the Special Forces The government of Niger appealed to the United States with the request to use attack drones to fight militants operating on the border of this African state with Mali. According to NBC, even before the attack o...

On November 15, the French presidency announced in an official statement that France President Emmanuel Macron has invited Lebanon’s prime minister Saad Hariri and his family to stay in France. “After speaking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri the president has invited Saad al-Hariri and his family to France,” the French presidency said in its official statement. Back on November 4,  Hariri announced his resignation from Saudi Arabia . Since then many Lebanese politicians including Lebanon president Michel Aoun and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that Hariri was forceed to resign by Saudi Arabia and that he is being held by the Saudi authorities against his will. Commenting on the matter, Macron told reporters that France is not offering an “exile” for Hariri according to Reuters agency. “I hope that Lebanon will be stable, and that political choices should be in accordance with institutional rule … We n...

The National Interest  published  an article, in which the US analysts admitted that there are three key areas where Russia either already has or is starting to gain an advantage over US. According to Lisa Sawyer Samp, a senior fellow at CSIS’ International Security Program, the US capability gap with regard to Russia is real, although it is regionally focused in Central and Eastern Europe. The three key areas where Russia is advantageous are the combined arms warfare, cyber and electronic warfare, and A2/AD. A2/AD stands for Anti-Access/Area Denial, a system dedicated to prevent an adversary from occupying or traversing an area of land, sea or air, usually endangering them According to experts, the United States has the right tools to take on Russian A2/AD zones in the European theatre, but it does not have enough capacity to take on Moscow’s new bastions head-on. The US military is overly reliant on air power to defeat those emerging threats, according to retired U...

Click to see the full-size image On November 14, Afghan officials said that 23-70 soldiers and officers of the Afghan Army were killed in hit and run attacks conducted by the Taliban’s special forces known as the “Red Unit”, the New York Times newspaper says. The biggest attacks took place in the western Farah province and in the southern Kandahar province, according to the New York Times report. Qudratullah Khushbakht, spokesman for the governor of Kandahar Province told the New York Times that “Red Unit” fighters were armed with US-made M4 rifles and equipped with Russian night-vision goggles and laser aiming devices. According to Khushbakht, the Taliban’s “Red Unite” is using VBIEDs that’s based on Ford trucks stolen from the Afghan Police and even using Humvee armored vehicles stolen from the Afghan Army. “The Taliban now are using different tactics … They have their own mobile special forces unit which is equipped with lasers and night-vision gear, and they are attack...