ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu The Houthi rebellion in Yemen that was already in existence more than five years ago had recently turned into a full-blown conflict that escalated into an international crisis in the first week of April of 2015 when Houthi rebels in Yemen deposed President Abed Rabou Mansur Hadi, throwing him out of the helm of Yemeni government. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia while the Houthis effectively captured the capital Sana’a. Thereafter, Saudi Arabia, has initiated massive aerial bombings against the de facto Houthi government in Sana’a and in various strategic areas of Yemen that are now being occupied by the Houthi militia. Saudi Arabia, together with its allies in the Arabian Peninsula has justified its invasion into another sovereign territory by claiming that they want the Houthis to return the reins of power back to the erstwhile government of President Hadi. However, it is really interesting to notice that the unilateral Saudi interventionism in the interna

The United Nations Security Council votes in an attempt to halt the escalating conflict in Yemen in New York April 14, 2015. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson) The UN arms embargo on Houthis in Yemen is designed not to stop war but to assign blame to those targeted by Saudi bombing, Brian Becker, from the Answer Coalition told RT. To achieve peace foreign powers should stop attacking Yemen, he added. The UN Security Council has imposed an arms embargo on the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Russia was the only abstention out of the Security Council members. RT: How will this decision by the UN Security Council affect the conflict? Brian Becker: The United Nations Security Council resolution on Yemen, the so-called arms embargo resolution is not a prescription for peace. It is not designed to stop the war. It is designed to assign blame to those who are the targets of the Saudi and other royal families of the Gulf region bombing. You see that the US and its allies in particular Saudi Arabia an

Oleg Kalashnikov (image by http://glavpost.com) ​A former Ukrainian MP and active anti-Maidan activist, Oleg Kalashnikov, has been killed in his flat in Kiev. His killing is the latest in a series of odd deaths plaguing former government officials and ex-President Yanukovich’s party members. The 52-year-old was found dead at his residence in Kiev on Wednesday evening. His death was “caused by a gunshot,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement announcing a police inquiry. Ukraine’s criminal investigation chief Vasily Paskal, took the investigation under personal control and promised to share motives and the preliminary results of the probe with reporters as soon as they become available. The investigation is focused on five possible motives for the crime, according to Interior Minister’s senior adviser, Anton Gerashchenko. So far the investigation considers the primary possible motive behind the killing to be Kalashnikov’s “political activity”linked with his “participation in the org

By Nick Turse For three days, wearing a kaleidoscope of camouflage patterns, they huddled together on a military base in Florida. They came from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, from France and Norway, from Denmark, Germany, and Canada: 13 nations in all. They came to plan a years-long “Special Operations-centric” military campaign supported by conventional forces, a multinational undertaking that -- if carried out -- might cost hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of dollars and who knows how many lives. Ask the men involved and they’ll talk about being mindful of “sensitivities” and “cultural differences,” about the importance of “collaboration and coordination,” about the value of a variety of viewpoints, about “perspectives” and “partnerships.” Nonetheless, behind closed doors and unbeknownst to most of the people in their own countries, let alone the countries fixed in their sights, a coterie of Western special ops planners were s

By Ron Paul Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new “threats” that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda. Here are just a few examples: The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more “Leopard” tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country’s inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country. The US Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, which was all but shut down in the 25 yea

By Mike Whitney “Will the reactionary rulers of Saudi Arabia manage to break the legitimate hopes and enthusiastic dreams burning in the hearts of thousands of young people of the Arabian Peninsula? Never!” — Gamal Abd al-Nasser, President of Egypt 1956 to 1970  In its ongoing effort to prevent the rise of “any popularly supported government in the region”, the US has joined Saudi Arabia’s savage war of annihilation against Yemen’s northern tribal rebels, the Houthis. The Pentagon has expedited the delivery of bombs, ammunition and guidance systems to assist the Saudi-led campaign and is providing logistical support to maximize the impact of its bombing raids. The US has also set up a “joint fusion center”, provided “aerial re-fueling platforms” and “advanced US-made weaponry” with the explicit intention of suppressing a militant group that overthrew the US-backed puppet government in the capital of Sanaa in the fall of 2014. The level of coordination between the makeshift Arab coaliti

(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