ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Associated Press - The terror plot involved targeting British reserve troops using a toy-car packed with explosives. But investigators said Thursday Britain’s domestic spy agency of MI5 and police were able to stop Zahid Iqbal, Mohammed Sharfaraz Ahmed, Umar Arshad and Syed Farhan Hussain before they could launch the deadly attack. Iqbal and Ahmed were given extended sentences of 16 years and 3 months, which means they will be in jail for more than 11 years and put on parole for the rest of the time. Arshad was sentenced to more than six years in jail, while Hussain received more than five years. The British men - aged between 22 and 31 - pleaded guilty in March to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism. The four were arrested a year ago in the town of Luton, north of London, after an operation by police and the MI5. Prosecutors said the Britons downloaded files containing instructions for an attack, bought survival equipment and collected money for terrorist pu...

AFP,Seoul - North Korea offered talks Thursday with South Korea and the United States, but laid out pre-conditions that Seoul dismissed as “absurd” and analysts said would do little to reduce soaring tensions. The demands laid out by the North’s main military body included the withdrawal of UN sanctions and a permanent end to South Korea-US joint military drills. The offer followed a month of increasingly hostile exchanges between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington that have included threats of nuclear war and precision missile strikes. The North’s conditions were swiftly rejected by South Korea which, together with the United States, has made any talks conditional on the North putting its nuclear weapons program on the table. “North Korea’s demands are totally incomprehensible. It’s absurd,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-Young told reporters. Dialogue has become the new focus of the blistering rhetorical battle that has trapped the Korean peninsula in an escalating cycle of militar...

Al Arabiya - A leaked video posted online shows Syrian government forces beating and torturing supposed Alawite officers, who have allegedly been accused of smuggling weapons to the Syrian opposition. The video clip uploaded by activists shows a reporter from the official Syrian TV channel present during the Syrian regime forces interrogation. Officers can be heard asking men, who have been placed in large metal containers, questions about their alleged involvement while slapping them repeatedly. The “officers from the Alawite sect” were blindfolded and handcuffed as portrayed in the online video. This video is one of many that have been leaked recently, showing Assad forces torturing unarmed civilians. It is impossible to verify the content and when the pictures were taken.

Germany on Thursday offered to keep 600-800 troops in Afghanistan for two years from 2015, after the end of NATO combat operations there, to help train and advise the national army in its battle against the Taliban. The offer comes with several conditions, including a formal request from the Afghan government, because “we want to be welcome” and a UN Security Council resolution, said Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere. It would also require a reasonable security situation and matching commitments by NATO allies in other parts of the country, he said, adding that he had informed major German parties of the plan that would require parliamentary approval. “The government is ready to offer, from 2015 and for initially two years, sending about 600 to 800 soldiers for expected training, advisory and support missions,” De Maiziere said at a press conference. “This offer is a declaration of intent by the federal government. Germany is taking an early and timely position on this important ques...

Germany signed a bilateral assistance agreement with Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior on Wednesday to pledge its support to the Afghan security forces after 2014. Deputy head of mission of the German embassy in Kabul called on the Afghan government to take full responsibility for the training centers built by his country around Afghanistan. "We have built training centers for the police in many provinces. The government of Afghanistan should take responsibility for these centers and continue the process of training the police," said Oliver Owzca at an event in Kabul to sign the assistance agreement between the German police academy of Lübeck and Afghan interior ministry's police academy. The training chief of the MOI police academy Noorullah Zal said the pact is of great value to the Afghan forces. "We are signing an assistance agreement with Lübeck, one of the best academies in the world, to provide security and stability in our country and to have better...

"The Afghan Taliban and all its sub-groups, including the Haqqani Network, remain capable of conducting high profile attacks though counter-terrorism pressure has degraded this ability," Dunford said in his Tuesday address to a senate committee in Washington. "However, the Taliban remain firm in their conviction that Isaf's drawdown and perceived ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) weakness...will translate into a restoration of their pre-surge military capabilities and influence." The four-star general pointed out the continued existence of insurgent safe havens. "Safe havens in Afghanistan and sanctuaries in Pakistan continue to provide Taliban senior leadership some freedom of movement and freedom of action, facilitating the training of fighters, and the planning of operations," he said. The General expressed that he has hopes for the peace talks with the Taliban but he believes the efforts have not been as productive as they should be. "I d...

The kidnapping happened in the Khaja Dokoh district of Jawzjan yesterday around 12:00pm, district governor Saira Shikeeb told TOLOnews. "Before kidnapping the soldiers, the Taliban also torched a fuel tanker and took the driver hostage. The security forces arrived in the area and started fighting the Taliban insurgents, but they could not rescue the soldiers," she said. "Today we received information that they beheaded the soldiers," she added. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the beheadings in a message to media outlets. Recently, Taliban insurgents have become more active in several parts of the northern province and have targeted the local security forces check-posts. It comes after some unknown armed men shot dead two employees of the Red Crescent and wounded two others Tuesday evening in Jawzjan's Khan Aqa district, local officials said. The head of the Jawzjan Red Crescent said that the incident occurred when one of the Red Crescent staff and his...

KABUL, Afghanistan — Roadside bombs and insurgent attacks killed at least 24 people in five separate attacks across Afghanistan as violence steadily rises during this year’s spring fighting season, officials said Wednesday. So far, April has been the deadliest month this year for Afghan and foreign civilians and security forces. According to an Associated Press tally, 182 people have been killed in violence around the nation this month. In western Afghanistan, seven women and children died when their truck hit a roadside bomb near Shindad in Herat province, said Muhiudin Noori, a spokesman for the governor. In the east, another roadside bomb killed five men who were part of a government security force guarding a convoy of trucks in Ghazni’s Qarabagh district, provincial spokesman Fazel Ahmad Sabaoon said. Also in the east, insurgents attacked a checkpoint in Laghman province, killing four village policemen, provincial spokesman Sarhadi Zawak said. In northern Jowzjan province, police c...