ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Kunar, Afghanistan: Taliban militants killed 13 Afghan soldiers in a fierce gun battle on Friday after storming an army post in the east of the country near the Pakistan border, police said. “The attackers were heavily armed,” a senior police officer in Kunar province, who declined to be named, told AFP. “We have recovered the bodies of 13 of our soldiers. The outpost has been nearly destroyed.”

Tokyo: US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Japan on Sunday to discuss nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula after securing vital support from China to help defuse the weeks-long crisis. On the final stop of a 10-day tour, he was to meet first with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, which has deployed Patriot missiles around the capital in anticipation of a missile launch by the North. As the top diplomats prepared to meet, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will hold talks with Kerry on Monday, said Pyongyang had to realise it was harming itself by being “provocative”. There are fears any launch could come on Monday, the anniversary of the birth of the North’s late founder Kim Il-Sung. The presence of Kerry in the region, ensuring maximum publicity, may also appeal to the regime. “The government will do its utmost to protect the lives and safety of the Japanese people,” Abe told local reporters during a visit to Iwo To, better known as Iwo Jima, where he ...

Beirut: Syrian troops have broken a months-long rebel siege on two key military bases in the northwestern province of Idlib, killing at least 21 opposition fighters, a watchdog said on Sunday. “Regime forces managed to lift the siege on the Wadi Deif and Hamdiya military camps after the army went around the rebel fighters and attacked them from behind,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. At least 21 rebels were killed in the attack, which focussed on the village of Babulin, the Britain-based group said. Troops “now control two hilltops on either side of the Damascus-Aleppo international highway” reopening a supply route for the army, Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman said. The watchdog said two military trucks carrying materiel and soldiers have since been spotted passing through the area for the first time in months. The area is in the countryside near the strategic town of Maaret Al Numan, which fell to rebel forces last October. Rebels began blocking military sup...

By Alexander VORONTSOV April 14, 2013  -" SCF " - Tensions are rising on the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang has decided to close the industrial complex in Kaesong, which is a joint enterprise zone with South Korea, and has suggested that foreign embassies evacuate the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for reasons of safety. Most significant in this series of steps has been the decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers' Party, held in March 2013, regarding legal confirmation of North Korea's nuclear status and the decision of the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea «On further strengthening the status of a country in possession of nuclear weapons for the purposes of self-defence». The majority of media, while painting a vivid picture of North Korea's militancy, is not trying to understand the reasons why the conflict on Korean soil is currently escalating so dramatically. When they do try, they usually name Pyongyang as th...

As the United States faces yet another crisis on the Korean Peninsula engineered by the vexingly erratic and disruptive North Korean regime, one key issue is how China might convince Pyongyang to dial back its provocations lest they escalate into military conflict. Although current consultations between Washington and Beijing are taking place behind closed doors, we do have a window into how the United States assessed China's options during a similar crisis nearly two decades ago -- options that included Chinese troops crossing the Yalu to secure its borders. COMMENTS (8) SHARE: Share on twitterTwitter Share on redditReddit More... In 1994, the United States received new intelligence that North Korea, despite its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Nonproliferation Treaty, was moving to produce nuclear weapons. How to halt this program and secure IAEA inspection of North Korea's nuclear facilities was the focus of intense but unfruitful negotiations ...

By Scott McConnell April 11, 2013  -" American Conservative " - The so called P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran are apparently going nowhere. One can find small signs of optimism: there was, for instance, some serious give and take at the last session between negotiators. But right now what the West is offering—limited sanctions relief in return for Iran dismantling its major hard-to-destroy reactor—hasn’t impressed the current batch of Iranian negotiators. As I read the accounts —which are highly technical for non-experts— it appears that the Iranians believe that if they’re going to accept limits and more intrusive inspections on their program, they want full sanctions relief, an end to all “regime change” talk and actions, and formal recognition of their right to enrich uranium. Right now the U.S. is offering limited sanctions relief and little else. The sides are far apart. What seems obvious is why Iran would feel it would want a nuclear deterrent. It is surrounded by...

By William Boardman April 11, 2013 - National Paranoia is the Irrational Fear that You’re Being Threatened Which is the more paranoid statement? 1. AMERICAN MEDIA: "North Korea is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons," or: 2. NORTH KOREAN MEDIA: "The United States is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons." Taking recent events in the U.S. and the Korean peninsula as evidence, while mostly ignoring historical context, the drift toward another American war in Asia can be seen as clearly as the ambiguous moves and countermoves of countries with no obvious motive for war might allow, producing headlines like this [1] in the New York Times of April 4: “North Korea Moves Missile to Coast, but Little Threat is Seen” According to the Times, “North Korea has been issuing a blistering series of similar threats in recent weeks, citing as targets the American military installations in the Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam, as well as the United States mainlan...

A former North Korean spy has recalled her role in blowing up a civilian South Korean jet in 1987 – killing all 115 passengers – after being “plucked” from her schoolyard to work for the regime. Kim Hyun-hee, who was later captured and tried to kill herself by swallowing cyanide, has come out of hiding to shed light on the regime’s warmongering and the desperate attempts by its “inexperienced” leader, Kim Jong-un, to shore up control over the military. The 51-year-old was given a death sentence after the 1987 attack, in which she and an accomplice managed to plant a bomb on a plane travelling from Baghdad to Seoul via Abu Dhabi. Despite the death of all 115 passengers on board, she was later pardoned after the South Korean government decided that she had been brainwashed. In an interview from an undisclosed location in South Korea where she lives in fear for her life with her husband and two children, she provided a rare insight into the inner workings of the secretive state and its yo...