ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

(Reuters/Social media via Reuters TV) Between 5,000 and 6,000 Europeans have traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State, the EU Commissioner for Justice says stressing that 1,450 of them are French citizens. The EU officials believe that “the figures are strongly under-estimated,” as foreign fighters are hard to keep track of, French newspaper Le Figaro reported citing Vera Jourova, the EU justice commissioner. "At the European level, we estimate that 5,000 to 6,000 individuals have left for Syria," she told the paper in an interview. Jourova added that the majority of them – 1,450 people – are French nationals. The Commissioner added that they are eyeing more measures to avoid the suspected jihadists leaving the EU countries, considering “prevention [measures] rather than suppression” of the flow. “We’ve allotted a budget of €2.5 million to provide training of prison and probation staff, as well as that of European prosecutors,” Jourova said. The EU nationals traveling t

S-300 launchers. (RIA Novosti/Andrei Aleksandrov) 61 The Russian president has repealed the ban prohibiting the delivery of S-300 missile air defense systems to Iran, according to the Kremlin's press service. The ban was introduced by former President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. “[The presidential] decree lifts the ban on transit through Russian territory, including airlift, and the export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also the transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the territory of the Russian Federation, both by sea and by air, of air defense missile systems S-300,”says the information note accompanying the document, RIA Novosti reported. The decree enters into force upon the president’s signature. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on the decision, saying that Moscow’s voluntary embargo on S-300 deliveries was no longer necessary, due to the progress in Iran’s nuclear talks made in Lausanne on April 2. He added that in the

By Robert Barsocchini Most Americans have no idea any of these events are occurring or have only vague, US government/press-created notions of them, but many who are cognizant – principally the abandoned people themselves – express confusion. Why would eight countries, including Russia, China, and India, carry out risky missions to save their own citizens, as well as foreign nationals, stuck in Yemen, but the US would staunchly refuse to do so? All we ever hear from the US government and press is that the US is so incredibly good and altruistic. So, how could this be happening? There is nothing confusing about the US government abandoning its own citizens in a war zone but rescuing and assisting Saudi bombers in the same war zone (“U.S. military assets had been used to rescue two Saudi pilots” McClatchy ; Pentagon spokesman told McClatchy the US will be refueling Saudi bombers “every day from now on.”) The recently conducted and largest study to date of who effects the actions of th

Arabian Game of Thrones It might be hard to imagine, especially since Riyadh and the Houthis fought a war in Saada earlier in 2009 and 2010, but the House of Saud has actually worked with the Houthis before the Kingdom launched Operation Decisive Storm on March 25, 2015. The Kingdom’s engagement of the Houthi movement was part of the House of Saud’s hoary and trite dirty game inside Yemen. In this regard, the House of Saud has been playing different Yemeni governments, the Houthis, the Muslims Brotherhood, and Al-Qaeda all against one another in a Saudi real life version of George R.R. Martin’s best-selling book series Game of Thrones. During the Cold War the US, the House of Saud, Britain, and Israel all supported the royalists in North Yemen and supported the idea of Zaidi imamate against Yemeni republicans. Once the republicans won the war, the Saudis began funding Wahhabi programs and schools to convert the Zaidis and to create sectarian divisions in North Yemen. After South Yemen

- Photos: Askold Krushelnycky MARIUPOL, Ukraine — On the edge of the city here, members of the 37th Mechanized Infantry Battalion are living in cramped bunkers sunk about 8 feet into the black earth of farm fields. The small spaces are jammed with bunk beds, weapons, food and the occasional stray cat or dog. The conditions are rough, but not dismal, and reflect the battalion’s motto, “Nobody But Ourselves,” a nod to the reality that Ukrainians — and particularly members of this volunteer battalion — have to rely on their own resources to defend their country. When the fighting started last spring, Ukraine had approximately 4,000 combat-ready troops, serving in a military debilitated by corruption. The military’s best weapons had been sold off and training was minimal. In response, many Ukrainians began organizing themselves into volunteer battalions, like the 37th Mechanized Infantry Battalion. With about 430 men, the 37th battalion is one of over a dozen private battalions that have

It’s hard for some Americans to understand why the Obama administration is so determined to come to an agreement with Iran on its nuclear capability, given that huge Iranian rallies are constantly chanting “ Death to America! ” I know the chanting makes me unhappy, since I’m part of America, and I strongly oppose me dying. But if you know our actual history with Iran, you can kind of see where they’re coming from. They have understandable reasons to be angry at and frightened of us — things we’ve done that if, say, Norway had done them to us, would have us out in the streets shouting “Death to Norway!” Unfortunately, not only have the U.S. and our allies done horrendous things to Iran, we’re not even polite enough to remember it. Reminding ourselves of this history does not mean endorsing an Iran with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. It does mean realizing how absurd it sounds when critics of the proposed agreement say it suddenly makes the U.S. the weaker party or that we’re getting a bad de

The idea is to repeat the US success in 2006-07 in supporting the Sunni “Awakening Movement” which weakened, though it never destroyed, al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of Isis. Now as then, many Sunnis hate the extremists for their merciless violence and enforcement of outlandish and arbitrary rules on personal behaviour that have no connection to even the strictest interpretation of sharia. The fact that so many Sunnis are alienated from or terrified by Isis should present an opportunity for Baghdad, since Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government is meant to be more inclusive than that of his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki. Increasingly aggressive sectarian policies pursued by Mr Maliki during his eight years in power are now blamed for turning peaceful protests by Sunnis into armed resistance and pushing the Sunni community into the arms of Isis. This is an over-simplified version of recent history, but with the new government lauded internationally for its non-sectarian stance, t