ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

In a major setback to President Assad, the second city – Idlib – narrowly escapes falling to jihadists as rebels storm provincial governor’s office and set about executing senior regime officers. Archive image of Idlib province BY ROBERT FISK  Syria almost lost its second city to the jihadists of Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra last night when hundreds of fighters stormed into the provincial capital, Idlib, captured the newly installed governor’s office and began beheading Syrian army officers. By the time government troops recaptured the building, at least 70 soldiers – many senior officers – had been executed, leaving one of the oldest cities in Syria in chaos. “They were slaughtered,” a message to Damascus said before the army was able to declare Idlib saved. The eastern city of Raqqa has been in the hands of Isis for months, but Idlib lies strategically placed between Aleppo and the coastal city of Latakia – both of which are still held by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Idlib’s fa

The new Emir of the self-proclaimed Caucasus Emirate (CE), located in Russia’s North Caucasus region, is making changes to the modus operandi of the organization. Ali Abu Muhammad (Aliaskhab Kebekov) was originally appointed as qadi, or senior Islamic judge, in October 2010. After the death of Doku Umarov in September 2013, the group appointed Abu Muhammad as Emir in March 2014 (apparently, it had taken the group some time to confirm the death of Umarov). In recent media releases, Abu Muhammad has given notice of a number of new policies, and provided official comment on several pressing issues for the insurgency. In one of his earlier releases, Abu Muhammad calls on fighters to engage in the conflict on a political, economic, and informational front – not just the military one. In relation to this, he admits that the insurgency cannot simply take every person who wants to join, especially those who are not physically fit. He has asked aspiring fighters not to attempt to make their way

Patrick Johnson China-India: The Brahmaputra River The Brahmaputra River is a 2,900 km river that originates in Tibet and flows through India’s Arunachal Pradesh state before merging with the Ganges and draining into the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. It is considered an important resource in all three countries that it flows through: for energy-hungry China, it provides hydroelectricity; and for India and Bangladesh, a key agricultural lifeline in otherwise overpopulated and arid region. The Brahmaputra River is particularly important to the agricultural industry in India’s Assam plains, and worries have arisen recently regarding a series of hydroelectric plants that China is in various stages of construction on its Tibetan plateau. Some experts believe that these projects will reduce the flow of the Brahmaputra in India, compounding an already tenuous water situation in the affected areas. While there is no comprehensive bilateral treaty in place for the sustainable management of t

A Donetsk bus stop, which was destroyed by a Ukrainian military artillery attack.(RIA Novosti / Gennady Dubovoy) The result of the postponed Ukraine EU association agreement has been “thousands of lives lost and almost a million left homeless,” Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin said. He also said that warnings from Russia almost a year ago were ignored. Churkin said at the very start of the conflict that Russia had warned that all parties needed to be included in talks and the rights of all had to be respected, no matter which region they came from. With his pleas not heeded, a vast humanitarian catastrophe has taken place in the eastern part of Ukraine. “What do we have today? Today Kiev and Brussels have returned to the position, which they needed to start with: suspend the association talks with the EU, which is exactly what the toppled President Viktor Yanokovich wanted,” said Russia’s Ambassador to the UN. “Due to a year of decisions, thousands of people have died, alm

"Party of war" rather than the "party of peace" winning Ukrainian parliamentary elections: DPR Prime Minister said© REUTERS/ Sergei Karpukhin The so-called "party of war" is winning the Ukrainian parliamentary elections, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) is not ruling out the resumption of hostilities, said the DPR Prime Minister Aleksander Zakharchenko. "According to the first results of the elections, the winner is rather the "party of war" than the "party of peace." Yatsenyuk, Turchynov, Lyashko and Poroshenko himself – all these politicians backed military actions against us," Zakharchenko told reporters on Sunday. Zakharchenko added that the DPR expects Kiev to take a tough stance against the People's Republic. "The ceasefire that we discussed since September 5 was used by Kiev for troops repositioning, getting fresh forces and new weapons," Zakharchenko said. Early parliamentary elect

By Pepe Escobar The brave women of Kobani - where Syrian Kurds are desperately fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh - are about to be betrayed by the "international community". These women warriors, apart from Caliph Ibrahim's goons, are also fighting treacherous agendas by the US, Turkey and the administration of Iraqi Kurdistan. So what's the real deal in Kobani? Let's start by talking about Rojava. The full meaning of Rojava - the three mostly Kurdish provinces of northern Syria - is conveyed in this editorial (in Turkish) published by jailed activist Kenan Kirkaya. He argues that Rojava is the home of a "revolutionary model" that no less than challenges "the hegemony of the capitalist, nation-state system" - way beyond its regional "meaning for Kurds, or for Syrians or Kurdistan." Kobani - an agricultural region - happens to be at the epicenter of this non-violent experiment in democracy, made possible by an arrangement early on during the S

Reuters/Stringer German authorities fear there could be as many as 7,000 Muslim extremists in the country by the end of the year. Disenfranchised youths are particularly vulnerable to being recruited, while there are around 450 German extremists in Syria and Iraq. The extremists all follow the strict interpretation of Islam known as Salafism and believe that jihad is a legitimate tool in their fight against the West, which they believe is an enemy of Islam. Hans-Georg Maassen, who is the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency,told rbb-Inforadi that there are currently around 6,300 Islamic extremists in Germany, but this figure could rise to as many as 7,000 by the end of the year, AP reports. There has been a steep rise in the number of Germans attracted to fundamentalist Islam. Three years ago there were only in the region of 3,800 followers of Salafism in the country, which then rose to 4,500 in 2012. Speaking in late August in Berlin, Maassen said young Muslims are attr

“The Hunt for Reds in October” — as the search for a mysterious submarine in Swedish waters has been termed — is over, at least for now. The Swedish authorities said Friday that a military team that had included minesweepers, helicopters and ships had been called off after a weeklong search for a vessel that never materialized. “The hunt is over, and now the time has come to analyze what happened,” said Ingela Nilsson, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Defense Ministry. “Everyone in Sweden has been talking about the hunt, and people were proud to see our military can conduct a large operation like this.” At a time of rising East-West tensions, fanned by Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine crisis, the search was the biggest mobilization of its kind in Sweden since the end of the Cold War. Some ground forces will remain on alert, Ms. Nilsson said. Signs of a possible vessel in the Stockholm archipelago were first detected on Oct. 17, and Swedish officials said they suspected that a foreign