ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

On January 20, ISIS fighters launched a rapid attack on positions of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies south of the Syrian capital, Damascus and captured several key buildings in al-Zain neighborhood between the Yarmouk refugee camp and Yalda district, according to the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq. The media outlet added that ISIS fighters killed three members of HTS and its allies. From its side, Syrian opposition sources revealed that most of al-Zain is now under control of ISIS as HTS and its allies failed to hold their positions inside it. The strategic neighborhood will allow ISIS fighters to launch attacks inside Yalda district located only 2km west of the Damascus airport highway. Video Player 00:00 00:40 HTS and several armed groups linked to the Palestinian Hamas Movement refused to withdraw from the districts of Aqraba, Beit Sahm, Yalda and Babila on December 2017. In response, hundreds of locals who are facing the threat of the nearb

There is a  growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized  over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy. As Philip Giraldi notes,  up until recently it has been habitual to refer to such activity as the Deep State, which is perhaps equivalent to the Establishment in that it includes financial services, the media, major foundations and constituencies, as well as lobbying groups, but  we are now witnessing an evolutionary process in which the national security regime is exercising power independently . Nowhere is that “independence” of the ‘state within a state’ more evident than in the blatant and egregious news this week that The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve  in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to

Illustrative image Units of the Turkish Ground Forces entered Syria’s Afrin area at 11:05 AM Sunday, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has announced,  according to the Turksih media . Ground units crossed the border from  Turkey’s Kilis . “The operation will have four stages, there will be a 30-kilometer buffer zone,” Yıldırım said commenting the development. Meanwhile, members of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army attacked positions of YPG/YPJ militias in the same area. The advance followed a major artillery and air bombardment campaign of the Turkish military against Kurdish forces in the area. On Saturday,  the Turkish Armed Forces officially announced the start of “Operation Olive Branch”  to combat what Ankara calls “terrorism” in the area. Turkish forces shell YPG positions: