ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Fighting has intensified in eastern Ukraine after the president, Petro Poroshenko , announced an end to a ceasefire and said he was ordering his forces to attack pro-Russian separatists. In a televised address on Monday night, Poroshenko said the 10-day ceasefire had ended, and vowed that Ukrainian government forces would "attack and liberate our land". Clashes were reported around both the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on Tuesday morning. Four people were killed and five wounded when a small bus came under fire in Kramatorsk, local news outlets reported. Photographs from the scene showed a woman's body lying in the aisle amid broken glass and blood. Other images published by InfoResist, an analytical group with close ties to the Kiev government, showed gaping holes and destroyed balconies in several residential buildings in Kramatorsk. Local resident Alexei Sergeyev said he heard periodic shooting and explosions throughout the night, including near the airfield that Ukra

An ACLU report released this week looking at 818 Swat team raids found 62% for drug searches, 79% on private homes and only 7% for the hostage and barricade situations Swat teams were made for. Photograph: Marcus Donner / Reuters A few years ago, the police chief in Keene, New Hampshire (population: 23,000) announced plans to patrol the hamlet's "Pumpkin Festival and other dangerous situations" with a 19,000-pound armored vehicle called the BearCat (price tag: $285,933, courtesy of a federal Homeland Security grant ). The cops in nearby Nashua had already purchased one of the so-called "rescue vehicles" – typically reserved for Swat missions and, you know, IEDs – with hundreds of thousands in drug forfeiture money , but given that the town of Keene has had just three homicides in the last 11 years , some locals thought the gun ports, rotating hatch, battering ram and tear-gas deployment nozzle all might just be a little much. "The police are already pretty

In Mosul, a perfect storm gathered last week, produced by decades of American adventurism in the ‘greater Middle East’. The American wars, including the ‘War on Terror’, were cat-and-mouse games that did not produce a final confrontation with Takfiri groups, but rather multiple confrontations, which have deferred or delayed both the domestic goals of these groups and their destructive power abroad, while ratcheting up their number and the resentment they carry against the West and its regional allies. What happened in Mosul, after what happened in Syria, threatens the pluralistic essence of Iraq and the Levant, and promises us another decade of unrest and terror in the region and abroad, if not addressed cooperatively on the international level, and in a responsible manner. There is a story in the Babylonian Talmud, retold by Somerset Maugham in 1933, which my father liked to tell me when I was a child, about a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market to buy provisions

By Moon Of Alabama - There is no longer an Jihadist ISIS or ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The people leading that entity declared (pdf) today, at the highly symbolic beginning of Ramadan, themselves to be a new caliphate: Therefore, the shūrā (consultation) council of the Islamic State studied this matter after the Islamic State – by Allah’s grace – gained the essentials necessary for khilāfah, which the Muslims are sinful for if they do not try to establish. In light of the fact that the Islamic State has no shar’ī(legal) constraint or excuse that can justify delaying or neglecting the establishment of the khilāfah such that it would not be sinful, the Islamic State – represented by ahlul-halli-al-‘aqd (its people of authority), consisting of its senior figures, leaders, and the shūrā council – resolved to announce the establishment of the Islamic khilāfah, the appointment of a khalīfah for the Muslims, and the pledge of allegiance to the shaykh (sheikh), the mujāhid, the scholar who pract

By Robert Fisk " The Independent " - - Well, God bless Barack Obama – he’s found some “moderate” rebels in Syria. Enough to supply them with weapons and training worth $500m. Congress wants to arm these brave freedom fighters, you see. And Obama, having sent his 300 elite Spartan lads to Iraq to help Nouri al-Maliki fight the rebels there, needs to send help to the rebels in Syria – even though most of them are on the side of the rebels in Iraq whom Obama wants Maliki to defeat. Confusing? You bet. So first steps first. Who are the “moderate” rebels whom Obama wants to train and arm? He doesn’t name them – and he can’t, because the original “moderates” whom America swore to arm (with the help of the CIA, the Brits, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey) were the so-called “Free Syrian Army”, mostly composed of deserters from Assad’s government forces. But the FSA – briefly beloved of John McCain until he discovered a pro-al-Qa’ida fighter sharing a photo-op with him in northern Syri

WASHINGTON: Time magazine has revealed a report of eight pages on plans to divide Iraq into three states, one of them in the north which is Kurdistan, the second for Sunnis along with Syria, and the third for Shi'ites in the south of the country that includes large areas of it. The magazine added that this new Shi'ite country would be heading south to Kuwait, to deduct vital areas from it and include some parts of the north-east of Saudi Arabia. The magazine published detailed maps distributing areas among Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. Baghdad was considered within the Sunni state, while Kirkuk was - according to the maps published by the magazine - inside the Kurdish state, but on the line of contact with the Sunni state, according to the report. The report speaks about the annexation of the Kurdish areas in Syria to a Kurdish state in addition to the inclusion of some Sunni areas of Syria's Sunni state. It is worth mentioning that the magazine is considered close to

Click to Enlarge Although Russian President Vladimir Putin's public support for diplomatic talks in eastern Ukraine and the decision of some separatist leaders to call for a cease-fire may de-escalate the crisis somewhat, a significant reduction in armed separatist activity throughout the contested east is unlikely. Conflicts between Western interests and Russia's goal of creating a neutral, decentralized Ukraine have prolonged negotiations. Members of the Donetsk People's Republic, the militant-controlled region of Ukraine, participated in informal consultations June 23, signaling an evolution in the ongoing conflict. Previously, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had resisted Russian pressure to negotiate with separatist leaders. Similarly, separatists had opposed the idea of holding direct talks with the government in Kiev. Separatist leaders, pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and

Members of the environmental group Greenpeace show pictures of polluted rivers in China as part of a protest at a popular shopping area in Beijing. (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Wide-scale but low-profile examinations of foreign nongovernmental organizations and their connections with domestic academia and social institutions inside China reflect Beijing's growing paranoia. In particular, a recent probe exposed concerns about foreign organizations' influence over local affairs and their ability to attract intellectual communities -- key avenues for influencing public opinion, especially in regard to sensitive subjects such as the environment, human rights and political campaigns . The rhetoric surrounding liberal reforms has grown in recent years, alongside increasing ideological debates in the public realm. The Communist Party is wary of losing ideological dominance and oversight of politically sensitive domains. The suspicion that Western organizations have a role t