ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Germany's lower house of parliament has approved joining the military campaign against Islamic State in Syria. Germany will send six Tornado reconnaissance jets, a frigate to help protect the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, refueling aircraft, and up to 1,200 military personnel to Syria, Reuters reported. However, Germany will not join in airstrikes, which are currently being launched by the US, Britain, France, and Russia. Of the 598 lawmakers who took part in the Friday vote, 445 voted for military action and 146 against. Seven members of parliament abstained. The decision was put to parliament following an appeal from France which came after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris. Until now, Germany has provided only logistical and technical assistance to the international alliance fighting against IS. The mission’s cost is estimated to reach about US$141.7 million.

Oil transportation routes into Turkey from Syria and Iraq. © Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation / Sputnik So why did Washington take virtually forever to not really acknowledge ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is selling stolen Syrian oil that will eventually find its way to Turkey? Because the priority all along was to allow the CIA – in the shadows – to run a “rat line” weaponizing a gaggle of invisible “moderate rebels”. As much as Daesh – at least up to now – Barzani mob in Iraqi Kurdistan was never under Washington’s watch. The oil operation the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) runs to Turkey is virtually illegal; stolen state-owned oil as far as Baghdad is concerned. Daesh stolen oil can’t flow through Damascus-controlled territory. Can’t flow though Shiite-dominated Iraq. Can't go east to Iran. It’s Turkey or nothing. Turkey is the easternmost arm of NATO. The US and NATO “support” Turkey. So a case can be made that the US and NATO ultimately support Daesh. What’s certain i...

Militants from Daesh (also known as ISIL/ISIS) are currently undergoing civil aviation training in the Libyan city of Sirte, the group’s apparent stronghold in North Africa, according to the Saudi-run, London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. The outlet says that the terrorists “practice take-off and landing, [using] a radar screen, and a communications device to contact the control tower.” The “prevailing belief amongst investigators” is that the flight simulator was seized from the training departments of Gaddafi’s looted airports. © AFP 2015/ MAHMUD TURKIA Members of forces loyal to Libya's Islamist-backed parliament General National Congress (GNC) secure the Al-Ghardabiya airbase as they fight Islamic State (IS) group jihadists on the outskirts of Libya's western city of Sirte on March 16, 2015 However other sources note that it is a brand new device and “may have arrived from abroad”. A group of Daesh leaders, including retired officers from Libya and a number of neighb...

A massive manhunt for the people who opened fire on a holiday party outside of Los Angeles ended Wednesday afternoon with a man and a woman, both suspected shooters, dead and a third person detained, police said. Fourteen people were killed and 17 wounded at a social services facility east of Los Angeles, according to the San Bernardino Police Department. Police initially sought up to three gunmen, but now believe the two people killed in a gun battle later on Wednesday were the only shooters involved in the deadly shooting – the worst in the U.S. since 2012. Gunmen in San Bernardino Mass Shooting 'Came Prepared' Police identified the suspected attackers as American Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, whose nationality was unknown. It is not clear how they were related. "I am in shock that something like this can happen," Farhan Khan, Farook's brother-in-law, said at a press conference Wednesday evening. "I hope everyone can understand and (that) ...

The Russian Defense Ministry has released evidence which it says unmasks vast illegal oil trade by Islamic State and points to Turkey as the main destination for the smuggled petrol, implicating its leadership in aiding the terrorists. The Russian Defense Ministry held a major briefing on new findings concerning IS funding in Moscow on Wednesday. According to Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov, Russia is aware of three main oil smuggling routes to Turkey. “Today, we are presenting only some of the facts that confirm that a whole team of bandits and Turkish elites stealing oil from their neighbors is operating in the region,” Antonov said, adding that this oil “in large quantities” enters the territory of Turkey via “live oil pipelines,” consisting of thousands of oil trucks. The routes of alleged oil smuggling from Syria and Iraq to Turkey © syria.mil.ru Antonov added that Turkey is the main buyer of smuggled oil coming from Iraq and Syria. “According to our data, the top polit...

Turkey has begun a defacto blockade of Russian naval vessels, preventing transit through the Dardanelles and the Strait of Bosporus, between the Black Sea and Mediterranean. According to the AIS tracking system for the movement of maritime vessels, only Turkish vessels are moving along the Bosphorus, and in the Dardanelles there is no movement of any shipping at all. At the same time, both from the Black Sea, and from the Mediterranean Sea, there is a small cluster of ships under the Russian flag, just sitting and waiting. The image below shows the situation with the ships using the GPS transponder onboard each vessel: In addition, shipping inside the Black Sea from Novorossiisk and Sevastopol in the direction of the Bosphorus, no Russian vessels are moving. This indirectly confirms the a CNN statement that Turkey may have blocked the movement of Russian ships on the Dardanelles and the Strait of Bosporus. There is a Treaty specifically covering the use of these waterways by nat...

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