ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Poly WB-1 (Photo: Top 81) China has presented Poly WB-1, a non-lethal ray gun that can be used for crowd dispersal, by making its targets feel like their skin is on fire. The US version of the weapon was shelved due to practical difficulties and the potential public backlash. According to the authoritative Jane’s magazine, the WB-1, presented at the Airshow China 2014 in Zhuhai last month, has a current range of about 80 meters, though it can be expanded to 1 kilometer. Using a similar principle to a microwave oven it incites movement in the fat and water molecules located just below the skin surface, making the target feel like they are burning from the inside. As soon as the target steps away from the ray, the pain ceases, purportedly leaving no damage to nerve endings and blood vessels, which are located deeper below the epidermis. This makes it a viable weapon for crowd control, which was how the US intended to use its own Active Denial System (ADS) during its occupations of Iraq a

Reuters / Stringer An alleged policy plan of the Islamic State outlines some chilling, if unrealistic, plots of the would-be terrorist state, including bribing Russia with access to oilfields in exchange for nuclear technology, and digging a canal across the UAE. The document reported by Britain’s Sunday Times is believed to have been written by Abdullah Ahmed Meshedani, a member of the highly secretive six-man war cabinet of the terrorist group, which wants to build an Islamist state, or caliphate, in parts of Iraq and Syria. It was captured by Iraqi special forces during a March raid on the home of a senior Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) member and confirmed as authentic by Western security officials. The 70-point plan provides an insight into the grandiose, if somewhat far-fetched, strategy aimed at undermining Shiites in the Arab world and Iran as that branch of Islam’s powerhouse nation. One of the goals listed in the documents is to offer Russia access to oilfields in Iraq’s

Reuters / Khaled Abdullah Houthi Shiite rebels obtained secret Yemeni intelligence documents with details about US-backed counter-terrorism operations, including the names and locations of informants, the Los Angeles Times reported citing American officials. The documents were stolen when Houthi fighters took over the office of Yemen’s National Security Bureau in the country's capital Sanaa, which was closely cooperating with the CIA on various anti-terror missions. US officials claim that some files were given to Iranian advisers. At the same time, the paper said there is no indication that Houthi rebels had direct control over the US intelligence files. The compromised files reportedly affected US President Barack Obama’s decision to evacuate remaining US personnel from Yemen last weekend, including 1,000 special operations forces. The decision to leave Yemen has crippled America’s counter-terrorism operations against Al-Qaeda militants in the area. The report emerged hours befor

Saudi Arabian forces, joined by nine other countries, have launched a military operation in Yemen against Shiite Houthi rebels, the Saudi ambassador to the US said. The offensive, which started with airstrikes, will also involve “other military assets.” According to Ambassador Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, the military operation in Yemen started at 7 p.m. EST (11 p.m. GMT). Obama ordered support to Saudi-led op, UN still ‘checking details’ US President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-led military operations in Yemen, the White House said in a statement, confirming that Washington had close communication with Hadi, the Saudis and other GCC states prior to the launch of the military operation. “While US forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen in support of this effort, we are establishing a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate US military and intelligence support,” the statement said.

by Mark Stockley The Dark Web is reflecting a little more light these days. On Monday I wrote about Memex, DARPA's Deep Web search engine . Memex is a sophisticated tool set that has been in the hands of a few select law enforcement agencies for a year now, but it isn't available to regular users like you and me. There is another search engine that is though. Just a few days before I wrote that article, on 11 February, user Virgil Griffith went onto the Tor-talk mailing list and announced Onion City , a Dark Web search engine for the rest of us. The search engine delves into the anonymous Tor network, finds .onion sites and makes them available to regular users on the ordinary World Wide Web. Up to now the best way to search for .onion sites has been to get on the Tor network using something like the Tor browser , but Onion City effectively does that bit for you so you can search from the comfort of your favourite, insecure web browser. The site can do this because it's

by  Mark Stockley   Anyone who used the World Wide Web in the nineties will know that web search has come a long way. Sure, it was easy to get more search results than you knew what to do with in 1999 but it was really hard to get good ones. What Google did better than Alta Vista, HotBot, Yahoo and the others at the dawn of the millennium was to figure out which search results were the most relevant and respected. And so it's been ever since - search engines have become fast, simple interfaces that compete based on relevance and earn money from advertising. Meanwhile, the methods for finding things to put in the search results have remained largely the same - you either tell the search engines your site exists or they find it by following a link on somebody else's website. That business model has worked extremely well but there's one thing that it does not excel at - depth. If you don't declare your site's existence and nobody links to it, it doesn't exist - in

AMMAN: Jordan says it will help train Syrian rebels as part of its fight against the extremist ISIS, which controls parts of neighboring Syria and Iraq. The training is part of a regional effort also involving Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as hosts of training sites. The U.S. Congress has passed legislation providing $500 million for training about 5,000 rebels over the next year. Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said Monday that Jordan will train Syrians to "defeat the terrorism that has been killing their sons and daughters." He would not say if training has already begun or where it would take place. Jordan is part of a U.S.-led military coalition against ISIS. It stepped up its involvement after the extremists burned a captured Jordanian fighter pilot.

Chinese-made advanced weapons systems flooding the international market over the next 10 years will cause instability, and make it a lot harder for the US to intervene in other countries, Foreign Policy magazine warned. FP analyzed the impact of Beijing’s rapidly increasing role in the global arms market in an article titled: ‘ China’s Weapons of Mass Consumption .’ China’s shift from small arms to advanced weapons systems is proven by the sale of drones to Africa and the Middle East in 2011, a contract to supply three frigates to Algeria in 2012 and Turkey’s surprise choice of a Chinese air and missile defense system over US, Russian, and EU offerings a year later. In recent years, Beijing has been trying to achieve self-sufficiency in defense supplies by investing heavily in mimicking foreign weapon technologies and domestic arms research and development programs. The approach turned out to be effective as, according to an independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’