ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

SAS and US special forces reportedly bolstering Afghan military in Helmand province, a year after Nato pulled combat troops out of country   Afghan National Army soldiers patrol in Helmand on Monday. Much of the town of Sangin has been taken over by Taliban forces. Photograph: Noor Mohammad/AFP/Getty Images The Afghanistan government has suffered a serious setback after a Taliban offensive succeeded in taking control of much of Sangin, the Helmand town that became totemic for British forces, accounting for a third of their casualties. The fall of key locations in and around the town on Sunday and Monday comes just a year after Nato pulled combat troops out of Afghanistan. Since then the Taliban has made inroads in Helmand and elsewhere around the country. The SAS and US special forces have been deployed to help retake lost ground in the province, according to reports from the Times and Wall Street Journal . The Taliban stormed the police headquarters, the administrative headquarte

For more than a century, Dabiq was one of northern Syria’s forsaken villages, a speck on a vast agricultural plain between the Turkish border and the deserts of Iraq, which hardly seemed likely to shape the fate of nations. A weathered sign at its entrance said 4,000 people lived there, most of whom appeared to have left by 2013, driven out over time by a lack of work – and lately by insurrection. For the first three years of Syria’s civil war, the arrival of a strange car would lure bored children to the town’s otherwise empty streets, scattering cats and chickens as they scampered after it. Little else moved. Dabiq’s few remaining men worked on the odd building project: a half-finished mosque, a humble house for one local who had just returned after 10 years labouring in Lebanon, or a fence for the shrine that was the town’s only showpiece – the tomb of Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik. The Ummayad caliph was buried under a mound of earth in 717, which over many centuries had somehow gro

At least 65,000 jihadi fighters could fill vacuum if Islamic State was defeated By  agencies More than half of the rebel fighters in Syria who are opposing President Bashar al-Assad are sympathetic to Islamic State views, a leading thinktank has claimed. The Centre on Religion and Geopolitics said efforts to wipe out Isis in Syria and Iraq would not end the global threat from jihadi groups because extremist views were common among Syrian fighters of all stripes. At least 15 militias, numbering 65,000 fighters, could fill any vacuum resulting from a defeat of Isis in Syria and Iraq by a coalition led by the US, a report by the thinktank found. About 60% of fighters in rebel factions in Syria identified with a religious and political ideology similar to that of the terror group, it added. The thinktank, run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, said: “The west risks making a strategic failure by focusing only on IS. Defeating it militarily will not end global jihadism.

By Seymour M. Hersh Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn’t adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington’s anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped. The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to ch

S-400 air defence missile system © Dmitriy Vinogradov / Reuters New Delhi has given the green light to purchase several Russian-made S-400 air defense systems, local media report. Indian military could become the second country in the world after China to procure state-of-the-art S-400s. On Friday, the Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by India’s Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar cleared the purchase 5 regimental units of the S-400 from Russia, the Economic Times reports. The deal is expected to be sealed within days to come during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Moscow next week. Defense Ministry sources told the Economic Times that the fast-tracked decision is to strengthen the country’s air defense capabilities. The cost of the deal was not disclosed so far, though the source said it will “happen shortly thereafter.” Rough estimates suggest the air defense systems alone will cost India about 400 billion rupees (around $6 billion). Until recently, Russia has been p

http://videos.videopress.com/KKWL5Jv7/u2tr_hd.mp4 In a new video purportedly released by Islamic State affiliate Shuhada al-Yarmouk, al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front militants are tied-up and blown up with bombs. The video is titled “Healing the Chests,” which is similar to the title of a previous ISIS video where Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh was burned alive. The new video is alleged to have been filmed in Daraa, Syria, where Shuhada al-Yarmouk mainly operates. Shuhada al-Yarmouk translates to “Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade.” The name references the Yarmouk Camp , an “unofficial” Palestinian refugee camp occupying a neighborhood in Damascus. According to the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium , the Shuhada al-Yarmouk Brigade was formed in August 2012 and was originally affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, but defected in October 2013. The group then began to cooperate with Jabhat al-Nusra, or the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that is currently fight

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazin ISIS' ideological source code can be found among America's allies in Riyadh. Image: ISIS or Saudi Arabia? ISIS and Saudi Arabia.   A recent confab of so-called "Syrian rebels" took place recently in Saudi Arabia. Those attending included a collection of dysfunctional expatriate "opposition" leaders as well as commanders from various militant groups operating in Syria including Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam - both affiliates of Al Qaeda's Al Nusra Front - a US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization since 2012 . The BBC in its article, " Syria conflict: Divided opposition begins unity talks in Riyadh ," would report: More than 100 Syrian rebels and opposition politicians are meeting in Riyadh in an attempt to come up with a united front for possible peace talks. As the conference in the Saudi capital began, one of the most