ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Anti-government protesters carry an injured man on a stretcher after clashes with riot police in the Independence Square in Kiev February 20, 2014. (Reuters / Yannis Behrakis) Snipers who are thought to have operated in Kiev’s Independence Square amidst events that led to a coup in February 2014 were trained in Poland and sent to Ukraine to “do a favor” for the US, a Polish Euro-MP claimed in an interview. On February 20, 2014, riot police trying to restrain anti-government demonstrators on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev suddenly retreated up the street from whence they had come. As the protesters rushed forward, gunfire suddenly broke out, with many witnesses saying it was a sniper attack. In some two hours, 46 people were killed. A year after the tragedy that provoked a huge backlash from the Ukrainians, ultimately leading to the rapid toppling of then-President Viktor Yanukovich, the events on the square are still pending investigation. Several Berkut riot police officers have bee...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets Korean People's Army.(Reuters / KCNA) North Korea could already possess up to 20 nuclear warheads and have a capacity to double its arsenal by next year, according to Chinese nuclear experts, the Wall Street Journal reports. Previous US estimates had put the total between 10 and 16. In April, the head of the US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, Admiral William Gortney, said the US military believes Pyongyang is capable of launching an ICBM with a nuclear warhead from a hard-to-track mobile launcher at the US West Coast. N Korea capable of launching ‘mobile’ nuke missile into US – NORAD “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 [ballistic missile] and shoot it at the homeland. We assess that it’s operational today, and so we practice to go against it,” Gortney said. At the start of 2015 the US-Korea Institute at the John Hopkins University presented three scenarios of North Kor...

The description of atomic bullets can be found in science fiction, but few people know that such munitions were reality in the USSR. One such bullet could melt an armoured tank, while several atomic bullets would destroy a multistory building. Why did the Soviet Union have to cease the production of such powerful ammo? It turns out that atomic bullets were invented in the USSR at the time when the country was striving for military parity with the US. They were not only created, but even tested. It goes about 14.3 mm and 12.7 mm caliber ammunition for heavy machine guns. Soviet engineers created a bullet of 7.62 mm - not for the Kalashnikov assault rifle, but for its machine gun. The cartridge was the most miniature nuclear weapon in the world. It is an open secret that any nuclear warhead should contain fissile material. For bombs, they take uranium 235 or plutonium 239. To make them work, the warhead made with the use of these metals should weigh more than one kilogram. In other wor...

Fighters loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi call for help for a comrade who sustained injuries during clashes with Houthi fighters outside Hadi's house in the country's southern port city of Aden April 19, 2015 (Reuters / Stringer) Yemeni people have a full right to resist “Saudi aggression” and a planned occupation by “all means and options,” the Houthi rebel leader said, as Riyadh wraps-up the “first phase” of an operation that saw more than 2,300 airstrikes in less than a month. “It’s the right of our people to resist the aggression and face the aggressor by any means,” the leader of Yemen’s Houthi militia Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said in a televised speech. Saudi Arabia’s goal is the “invasion” and “occupation” of Yemen, in order to “place this country again under its feet and hegemony,” al-Houthi said as the Saudi-led airstrike campaign entered its 26th day. “Our Yemeni people will never give in – it will resist in the face of the savage aggression,” th...

As the Soma trial begins, MEE examines Turkey's ever-expanding neoliberal economic policies that have led to escalating mining deaths Relatives carry a list of the of Soma mining disaster victims' name as they arrive at the Akhisar High Criminal Court for the trial of the Soma mine disaster case in Manisa, Turkey on April 15, 2015. (AA) Cagri Ozdemir On the first day of the trial of the worst mining accident in Turkey that claimed the lives of 301 people in May 2014, national attention in the country is directed at Akhisar, Manisa. The small town, home to around 100,000 residents, is under the spotlight of national and international media coverage. Relatives of the lost miners, a total of 487 people, filed 139 individual cases against the proprietor of the mine, Soma Mining Inc. Out of the 45 defendants, eight of them are currently in custody and charged with wilful homicide of 301 victims. Last week, Akhisar Heavy Penal Court, the body that will hear the suit, announced ...

A $3 billion programme funded by Saudi Arabia seen as an attempt to counter Iranian influence in the Mediterranean country Lebanese armed forces take cover behind an armoured personal carrier in Tripoli (AFP) The first French weapons from a $3 billion Saudi-funded programme will arrive in Lebanon on Monday. Anti-tank guided missiles are set to arrive at an air force base in Beirut, overseen by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his Lebanese counterpart, Samir Mokbel. France is expected to deliver 250 combat and transport vehicles, seven Cougar helicopters, three small corvette warships and a range of surveillance and communications equipment over four years as part of the $3 billion (2.8 billion-euro) modernisation programme. It is being entirely funded by Saudi Arabia, which is keen to see Lebanon's army defend its borders against militant groups, particularly the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra, instead of leaving the job to Hezbollah militants, who a...

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, uses a diagram of a bomb to describe Iran's nuclear programme (AFP) Israel's secret service had long believed Iran was not making a nuclear weapon, according to a tranch of documents leaked from various spy agencies. A new joint report produced on Monday by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian shows top secret files - correspondances with the South African intelligence services - suggesting that Mossad, the Israeli security agency, has believed since 2012 that the Islamic Republic of Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons,” according to the leak. The revelation would seem to undermine claims by other branches of the Israeli state – including the prime minister – that Iran presented a threat to Israelis through its desire to produce nuclear weapons. The date of the cables is particularly ironic, as it came just a month after a speech made by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations General A...

There is a heightened sense of threats across the Middle East and states have focused on military power to address their newly found challenges Secretary of State John Kerry said 9 April the US would support any Middle Eastern state that felt threatened by Iran, and would not "stand by" if Tehran destabilised the region. It would be naive to think that this is a display of American altruism. This is about money, particularly in the form of weapons sales. After all, war - or even just the threat of it - is profitable, especially for those supplying arms but not actually fighting. Weapons exports provide massive economic benefits, which translate to political benefits, domestically and in terms of influence with clients. The Middle East and North Africa has long been a theatre of combat - often on numerous fronts - and hence among the most lucrative markets on the planet. However, weapons purchases have skyrocketed in recent years as unrest, tension and war between and within ...