ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Ukraine crisis is carrying on in much the same fashion it has been since it broke out in early 2014: for every gesture of diplomatic contrition, there are two moves on the ground pointing to further conflict. The most recent dovish overture comes in the form of a gas deal reached between Moscow and Kiev, one that will also ensure the flow of energy supplies to Western Europe over the coming winter. The deal calls for Ukraine to pay out two tranches of $3.1 billion by the end of the year, covering both its outstanding debts with Gazprom and the 4 billion cubic meters of gas it will need through next March. High levels of EU and IMF assistance will be necessary to help the nearly bankrupt government in Kiev cover the cost of the deal. Yet there are, as always, hawkish developments unfolding against the backdrop of this ostensible détente. Moscow is openly supporting the elections currently being held in separatist ‘people’s republics’ in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. T...

A Sineva missile launch. Still from video provided by the Russian defense ministry. The Delta IV-class submarine Tula has successfully test-fired a Sineva strategic SLBM in a latest of a series of tests of Russian nuclear weapons arsenal. The missile was launched on Wednesday from a submarine beneath the Barents Sea. Its multiple warheads arrived at the Kura rocket test range in the Far-Eastern island of Kamchatka. It was the third test of a strategic submarine-launched missile Russia conducted this year. In September and again in October two Bulava missile launches were conducted. The Tula is one of seven submarines of the Delta IV class (or Delfin in Russian disambiguation) currently in service in Russia’s Northern Fleet. The class is the current backbone of the naval component of the Russian nuclear deterrence. The newer Bulava-carrying Borey-class submarines are to gradually replace them after 2020. The K-114 Tula nuclear submarine at a pier of the Russian Northern Fleet's nav...

Camp Bucca in 2008. (Photos by Andrea Bruce/The Washington Post) In March 2009, in a wind-swept sliver of Iraq, a sense of uncertainty befell the southern town of Garma, home to one of the Iraq war’s most notorious prisons. The sprawling Camp Bucca detention center, which had detained some of the war’s most radical extremists along the Kuwait border, had just freed hundreds of inmates. Families rejoiced, anxiously awaiting their sons, brothers and fathers who had been lost to Bucca for years. But a local official fretted. “These men weren’t planting flowers in a garden,” police chief Saad Abbas Mahmoud told The Washington Post’s Anthony Shadid, estimating that 90 percent of the freed prisoners would soon resume fighting. “They weren’t strolling down the street. This problem is both big and dangerous. And regrettably, the Iraqi government and the authorities don’t know how big the problem has become.” Mahmoud’s assessment of Camp Bucca, which funneled 100,000 detainees through its bar...

By Moon Of Alabama "Training" foreign troops seems to be some magic solution for various foreign policy problems. "Training" a new Iraqi army against the Islamic State is the latest of such a hoped for miracles. But all recent "western training" has been more problematic than successful. The various foreign troops trained at the infamous U.S. Army School of the Americas, turned out to be capable, but only as torturers and death squads: Observers point out that School alumni include: 48 out of 69 Salvadoran military members cited in the U.N. Truth Commission's report on El Salvador for involvement in human rights violations (including 19 of 27 military members implicated in the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests), and more than 100 Colombian military officers alleged to be responsible for human rights violations by a 1992 report issued by several human rights organizations. Press reports have also alleged that school graduates have included several Peru...

Reuters/Youssef Boudlal Islamic State has set fixed prices to sell Yazidi and Christian women who have been abducted by members of the militant group, Iraqi media have reported. The barbaric tariffs range from around $40 for older women to $170 for children. The group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, says they will execute anyone who violates the controls, which have been implemented. $43 is the price for a Yazidi or Christian women who is aged between 40 and 50. For those aged between 20 and 30, the price is $86. The sickening trend continues, with girls falling into the 10 to 20 age group being sold for $129 and children up to the age of nine, commanding the highest prices of $172 or 200,000 dinars. The document states that there has not been so much interest in purchasing slaves recently. “The market to sell women and spoils of war has been experiencing a significant decrease, which has adversely affected ISIS revenue and financing of the Mujahideen,” said the document, which was obtain...

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ) is the world’s largest, richest terrorist organizations, ever. It’s a self-sustaining enterprise that runs mainly on extortion and crime networks, hostages, oil, donations…According to Martin Chulov; ISIS has grown from a ragtag band of extremists to perhaps the most cash-rich and capable terror group in the world with a $2 billion jihadist network. The scale of ISIS resources is unprecedented: A terrorist organization while ruthless, but still able to occupy large areas of territory, quickly… for example; it controls several major cities in Iraq, which it occupied in just three days, it holds parts of several other cities and continues to menace still other cities throughout Iraq and Syria: It’s quite an accomplishment… According to Michael Knights; some estimates of ISIS’s wealth are overstated, for example; the $2 billion estimate that’s been floating around is too high, but that’s not to say ISIS isn’t raking in a fair amount of c...

Modi condemns terror attack on Pakistan side of Wagah border WAGAH: Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies both picked up plans for an imminent strike on their Wagah land border ahead of a suicide blast that killed 57 people on Sunday, and heightened security, possibly averting a more devastating attack. Pakistani police on Monday said they had recovered a "huge" cache of weapons and explosives near the border, where thousands of Indians and Pakistanis gather at dusk every day to watch a flamboyant ritual parade by their security forces. Pakistani police spokeswoman Nabeela Ghazanfar said the latest death toll was 57 after the bomber detonated explosives in a car park 500 metres (yards) from the border gates and parade ground, just as hundreds of spectators were returning from the ceremony. Pakistani and Indian agents, who are arch-rivals and do not share intelligence, gave conflicting accounts of whether the bomber's true intention was to cause casualties on the In...

AFP Photo/Frederick Florin When it comes to dealing with terrorism US intelligence community feels like it operates with one hand tied behind their back because of whistleblowers like Snowden and Manning, intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey told RT. Benjamin Sonntag, Co-founder La-Quadrature du Net, on whistleblowing: "That is obvious [that the latest US whistleblower’s name hasn’t been released] because there is an inquiry in progress. So they would certainly not say anything until they have some kind of proof or some kind of name or arrest that person. What is true is that we have a lot of information saying that there is certainly a second whistleblower. The main problem is that Mr. Obama is continuing his policy which consists of attacking whistleblowers and not protecting them like it should be." RT: Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning quickly became known, didn’t they? Why has this new whistleblower’s identity not been released yet? Glenmore Trenear-Harvey: Ther...