ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has killed more than 100 civilians in a 24-hour rampage through the Kurdish town of Kobane in what a monitor group described as one of the group's "worst massacres" in Syria. Women and children were among the slain civilians whose bodies were found in their homes and in the streets, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "According to medical sources and Kobane residents, 120 civilians were executed by ISIL in their homes or killed by the group's rockets or snipers," Rami Abdelrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told AFP news agency on Friday. "When they entered the town, the jihadists took up positions in buildings at the southeast and southwest entrances, firing at everything that moved." "We heard gunshots at 5am. We went out to the street and saw people lying on the ground, shot and killed. Bodies and blood everywhere. Mahmoud Muslim, survivor Turkish officials s...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.(Reuters / John Stillwell) The United States has unparalleled surveillance capabilities that it uses to spy on the entire world, including its allies, to boost its competitiveness, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a Russian TV channel. “The US is a surveillance superpower,” he told Rossiya-1 in an interview, slated to be broadcast later on Sunday. “This country spends on surveillance 60 percent of what the entire world spends on espionage,” he said.“They spy on everyone, including their allies. And use the information for their political and economic goals.” Earlier, WikiLeaks released classified NSA document apparently proving the intelligence agency had been spying on top French officials, including three consecutive presidents. US President Barack Obama and State Secretary Kerry assured that no such activities had taken place. Assange insists the documents released by the whistleblower website are proof enough. New data on the issue is to be rel...

Reuters Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has executed more than 3,000 people in Syria alone, of which 1,700 were civilians, since the group proclaimed themselves as a caliphate on the territories of Syria and Iraq as of June 29, 2014, a monitor group said. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group told AFP it had documented a total 3,027 confirmed executions by IS, including 1,787 civilians, 74 among of them children. About half the civilians killed were from the Syrian Sunni Shaitat tribe, and 930 more victims were from a clan in Deir Ezzor, which faced mass executions after rebelling against Islamic State last year. The death toll also includes victims of a recent IS attack on the Kurdish town of Kobani, which claimed the lives of 223 people this week. During the year since the IS declared the “caliphate,” the group has executed 216 members of rival rebel fractions and Kurdish fighters, as well as about 900 government troops, the Syrian Observatory for H...

Two small newsitems have not received much attention recently, and yet they might be the signs of something big happening: Poroshenko has fired the notorious Head of the equally notorious Security Service of Ukraine or SBU: Valentin Nalivaichenko. Sergei Ivanov, the powerful Deputy Prime Minister of Russia has stated that the US and Russia have created a bilateral communications channel on the Ukraine run by Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, for the USA and Grigorii Karasin, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, for Russia. The official reason for that was “not to complicate the already delicate “Normandy-format”. So on one hand, we have Kerry and Nuland who came to Russia and who, by all accounts, got nothing of what the asked for but who are now getting a “communications channel” while at the same time, the 100% USA-controlled Nalivaichenko, who is rumored to be an actual CIA agent recruited many years ago, is booted out by Poroshenk...

RT Photo Growing up in a society where it was inconceivable for men and women to fight together, Kurdish YPJ female forces engaged in combat against the Islamic State, have been starting their own revolution. They told RT their previously undocumented stories. RT filmed a unique documentary “Her War: Women Vs. ISIS” about young Kurdish women in Syria, who are defending their country against the Islamic State (IS formerly known as ISIS/ISIL) militants. For three weeks the RT Documentary team lived in a training camp run by the YPJ, on the border with Iraq, three kilometers from the frontline. Gulan, 18, from the predominantly Kurdish town of Serekaniye, which borders territories controlled by IS, said that she took up arms to protect her family. The Kurds are an ethnic group, culturally and linguistically related to Iran, which does not have its own state. The Kurdistan region spans adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. RT Photo “I’ll go fight the enemy to keep my father safe...

A Chinese website has published photographs from one of the reefs under China’s control in the disputed South China Sea showing female sailors posing on ocean breakwalls, vegetable gardens being watered and even pigs in a pen. The slideshow of 17 photographs from Fiery Cross Reef shows how quickly China is developing facilities to support its troops on the newly formed island following major land reclamation. Sina, one of China’s biggest web portals, put the slideshow online under the headline “Gratifying results on China’s Yongshu Reef: building vegetable greenhouses (and) growing fruit trees.”   Photo posted to sina.com.cn purportedly showing scene from disputed Fiery Cross Reef in South China Sea. Photograph: sina.com.cn Fiery Cross is among seven Chinese-held reefs in the Spratly chain in the South China Sea which are being transformed into artificial islands despite alarm from other claimants to the strategic waterway and growing criticism from Washington. Sina did not ...

By Zachary Keck Russia appears intent on selling China its most advanced fighter jet by the end of the year, a move that will greatly enhance Beijing’s ability to project military power in the South China Sea. Speaking to reporters at the Paris Air Show this week, Yuri Slyusar, chairman of United Aircraft Corp, a Russian civilian and military jet manufacturer, said his company is aiming to ink a deal with China to sell Beijing 24 Su-35 fighter jets. “Our position is that we still believe that we will sign the contract to sell 24 aircraft this year,” Yuri said, according to multiple Western defense news outlets. He added that the decision would have to be approved by the “federal service on military cooperation.” China and Russia have been in negotiations for years over the potential sale of the Su-35, which Moscow refers to as a 4++ generation multi-role fighter jet. The talks have bogged down over Russia’s fears that China will reverse engineer the plane in order to produce a domes...

By Pepe Escobar The dogs of western fear and sanctions bark, while the Eurasian caravan passes. And no caravanserai could possibly compete with the 19th edition of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Thousands of global business leaders – including Europeans, but not Americans; after all, President Putin is “the new Hitler” – representing over 1,000 international companies/corporations, including the CEOs of BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, hit town in style. Fascinating panels all around – including discussions on the BRICs; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); the New Silk Road(s); the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU); and of course the theme of all themes, “The Making of the Asia-Pacific Century: Rebalancing East,” with former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Predictably, there’s been plenty of anticipation regarding the BRICs New Development Bank, with big news coming next month at the BRICs summit in Ufa. Brazilian Paulo Nogueira Batista, the new vi...