ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

For the first time Iran’s army has tested a suicide drone able to hit aerial and ground targets, as well as ships, said the army's chief commander of ground forces amid the third day of massive drills at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. The unmanned aircraft is "a mobile bomb" that can be used for “hitting aerial and ground targets and can carry out an attack when it identifies a suspicious target,” commander Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan told journalists on Saturday. Local media reports indicated that the drone is called Yasir. It’s a domestically produced combat drone that was unveiled in September. Yasir is equipped with state-of-art, light cameras for reconnaissance. It can fly for eight hours with a range of 200 kilometers and reach an altitude of 4,500 meters. The drone was tested as part of a six-day exercise code-named Mohammad Rasoulallah (Mohammad, the Messenger of God) that started on Thursday, involving all branches of Iran’s military. The second stage of the ma

A country’s armed forces are centered on its government-sponsored defense, fight and military organizations. Their purpose is to protect the nation from internal and external aggressors, and always be prepared to battle against unexpected attacks. A country’s army services have immeasurable benefits, one of the most obvious being to keep the people safe from internal conflicts and foreign threats. Over the past couple of years, the armed forces have served an emergency civil support role in all sorts of circumstances, mainly post-disaster. One of the world’s most complex continents, Europe, has managed to survive numerous political conflicts between countries over the centuries. It survived many international revolutions, independence wars, and even two world wars. It’s the 21st century and Europe’s most powerful countries reckon the importance of the armed forces for the well-being and political safety of their people. That being said, here are 7 of Europe strongest armies. THE RUSSIA

Basic services such as water and rubbish collection are failing and residents are struggling to find food Isis’s vaunted exercise in state-building appears to be crumbling, as living conditions deteriorate across the territories under its control, exposing the shortcomings of a group that devotes most of its energies to fighting battles and enforcing strict rules. Residents say services are collapsing, prices are soaring and medicines are scarce in towns and cities across the “caliphate” that Isis proclaimed in Iraq and Syria, belying the group’s boasts that it is delivering a model form of governance for Muslims. Slick videos depicting functioning governing offices and the distribution of aid fail to match the reality of growing deprivation and disorganised, erratic leadership, the residents say. A trumpeted Isis currency has not materialised, nor have the passports the group promised. Schools barely function, doctors are few and disease is on the rise. In the Iraqi city of Mosul, the

Their town may be destroyed but the residents' spirit is strong Keeping the night watch at a border outpost at the edge of Kobani, one member of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic People's Units (YPG) stands surveying the surrounding area, despite the near total darkness of the city's wartime blackout. The triangular yellow flag of the YPG flutters on a small pole above him, a red star at its centre. "Islamic State [also known as Isis] are over there," he says, pointing south-east, "less than a kilometre away." He adds that the first coalition air strikes came at a crucial moment. "We only had one or two days left when they started bombing," he explains. "We were out of ammunition, everything." Now, whenever an air strike lands, people happily shout "Obama!" and several newborn babies in Kobani have been named in honour of the American President. Mortar strikes and gunfire can be heard throughout the day but, compared to the earl

The country's dictatorship says it has nothing to do with the attack and has criticised the US for spreading rumours North Korea has threatened military strikes against the White House, the Pentagon, and the “whole US mainland, that cesspool of terrorism”. The warning was made by the country’s National Defence Commission late on Sunday night in response to accusations by the United States government that North Korea was behind a recent hacking incident. United States officials have accused North Korea of having links to hackers who leaked private information from Sony Pictures Entertainment and who managed to postpone the release of the film The Interview. The cyber-attackers had threatened violence against cinemas showing the film, leading to large numbers of theatres dropping it from their schedules and to Sony claiming the launch was unviable. The plot of The Interview focuses on the assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. The country’s government

Participants hold up their mobile phones during a demonstration called by anti-immigration group PEGIDA, a German abbreviation for "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West", in Dresden December 8, 2014. (Reuters/Hannibal Hanschke) Islamophobia we see now in Germany has nothing to do with classical neo-Nazi ideology, it is partly fueled by right-wing extremists and populists who impose on the locals the idea of a threat coming from Muslims, Daniel Koehler from EXIT-Germany told RT. German police have established there is a considerable rise in far-right extremism and violence against foreigners in Germany. The attacks seem to be a backlash against the sharp increase in the number of refugees arriving in Germany. It remains the strongest EU economy and attracts thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers. At the same time the Muslim community in Germany is sounding the alarm over rising Islamophobia in the country. RT: The migrants themselves say Germany is a grea

People hold funeral prayers for the victims of the Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, at the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, December 17, 2014. (Reuters/Mohsin Raza) Some 500 terror-related convicts are due to be executed in the coming weeks, according to Pakistan’s officials. There are an estimated 3,000 convicted terrorists in the country, and all could put to death after the recent attack at a Peshawar school. “The Interior Ministry has cleared these prisoners for execution and their clemency appeals have already been rejected by the president,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters in Islamabad on Sunday. The minister also revealed that the decision to lift the moratorium on the death penalty was made in principle even before last week’s attack on a Peshawar school, which left 149 people dead, including 133 children, sparking widespread public outrage in Pakistan. A man places a rose after lighting candles in front of portraits of the victims of the

The find during construction work near Potsdam central railway station also halted local bus, tram and train services and led authorities to clear ministry buildings and the parliament of Brandenburg state. PHOTOS The main train station is cordoned off after a 250-kilogramme World War II bomb was found in Potsdam near Berlin. (AFP/Georg-Stefan Russew) BERLIN: About 10,000 people had to be evacuated on Thursday (Dec 18) after an unexploded 250-kilogramme World War II bomb was discovered in a city near the German capital. The find during construction work near Potsdam central railway station also halted local bus, tram and train services and led authorities to clear ministry buildings and the parliament of Brandenburg state. A bomb disposal squad was seeking to defuse the explosive, believed to hail from a major British bombing raid that destroyed much of the inner city of Potsdam on Apr 14-15, 1945. The ground below many German cities remains littered with unexploded ordnance dropped by