ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

On October 28, a convoy of the Turkish military, consisting of more than 20 armored vehicles, trucks and engineering vehicles, arrived in the opposition-held part of the northern Hama countryside, according to the Syrian news outlet Enab Baladi. The pro-opposition news outlet said that the new troops were deployed in the Turkish observation posts in the towns of Murak and Shir Mughar. The Turkish military established these posts earlier this year as a part of an agreement reached during the Astana talks. Earlier this month, Syrian opposition sources reported that  the Turkish military is strengthening its observation posts  within the demilitarized zone around the northern governorate of Idlib, which has been established under the Russian-Turkish  deconfliction agreement . Instead of forcing radical militants to withdraw from the demilitarized zone, Turkey appears to be taking advantage of the deconfliction agreement to boost its influence in the opposition-held area in northe

he “Adir” jets first flight in Israel. Pictured: “Adir” jet and F-16I “Sufa”. Photo by: Maj. Ofer On October 28, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) announced that one of its warplanes targeted three Palestinians who had approached the security fence in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The IAF claimed that the Palestinians were “terrorists” who were attempting to plant an improvised explosive device (IED) near the fence. “Today – 3 Gazans placed an explosive device on the border fence with Israel, ON GROUND … We responded by firing towards the terrorists,” the Israeli military said on Twitter. Few hours later, Palestinian sources revealed that three children were killed in the Israeli airstrike, which targeted them east of the area of Deir al-Balah. The victims were identified as 14-year old “Khalid Bassam Mahmood Abu Saaid,” 13-year old “Abd al-Hamid Mohamad Abd al-Aziz Abu Taher” and 13-year old “Mohamad Ibrahim Abdullah al-Satri.” Palestinian fighters may respond to this i

The weakness in Germany’s political establishment became more obvious after the Hesse state regional elections on October 28 th . German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the elections, according to the preliminary polls. However, it was with a large drop in support. CDU received 27% of the votes, which is 11.3% lower than the vote it received in 2013. Pre-election polls predicted a worse result. The result allows incumbent state premier and Merkel ally Volker Bouffier a mandate to form the next government. Click to see the full-size image The Social Democrats (SPD) suffered a similar drop, claiming 19.8 percent of the vote — the party’s worst result in Hesse since 1946. This may lead to SPD quitting its grand coalition with conservatives at the national level. There are two big winners from the Hesse election: The Greens and the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The Greens rose more than 8% to 19.8% in comparison to their results from five yea