ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The U.S. military has launched a program to equip its front-line soldiers with the latest battlefield technology. The Squad X initiative would give an Army or Marine Corps squad new computerized weapons, the latest smartphone-style communications and even easy-to-use robot helpers. The program aims to help the troops “have deep awareness of what’s around them, detect threats from farther away and, when necessary, engage adversaries more quickly and precisely,” according to Army Maj. Christopher Orlowski, who’s managing the Squad X effort on behalf of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Pentagon’s cutting-edge science department. Squad X is still just a concept. It’ll be up to Orlowski, other DARPA officials and the defense industry to determine exactly what technology the program includes. But one thing is clear: The government wants to profoundly change the way squads move, communicate and fight. The problem is, the military has tried these sorts of technical advances bef

Civilian casualties are on the rise in the northeastern Syrian town of Qamishli, which is next to the Turkish city of Nusaybin. The area has been locked in Ankara’s intense anti-terrorist operation against Kurdish militias for months. It has also impacted Kurds in Syria. Operations against the PKK in the Nusaybin district in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin have intensified over the past month as Ankara continues its military crackdown on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). At the same time Ankara, in a clear violation of international law, continues to target the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Unity Party (PYD), which is linked to the PKK as well as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) which fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria. Military actions on the Turkish side of the border over the past few weeks had been spilling over into Northern Syria and the town of Qamishli, which before the conflict had over 180,000 people living inside its walls. As shelling

Thousands of unaccompanied children and teenagers have reportedly disappeared in Germany over the past year amid concerns that they might have fallen into the hands of criminals and human smugglers. The German news organization Funke Mediengruppe reported on Monday that 5,835 refugee minors from countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia went missing in the Western European country in 2015, of whom 555 are under the age of 14. The majority of the missing and unaccompanied minors were from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Morocco and Algeria. This is while officials in Berlin have no indications of their whereabouts. German Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth confirmed media reports that the government had recently informed parliament about the disappearance of nearly 6,000 refugee children. Dimroth added that the actual number of the missing children could be even slightly higher than the current statistics. He, however, could not give reasons for their disappearance.

Four oilfields have been shut down and employees in a fifth oilfield have gone on strike in Libya over fears that the Daesh terrorist group may attack the facilities. The Libyan state news agency LANA said on Monday that the Bayda, Tibisti, Samah and Waha oilfields in Merada, southeast of the capital, Tripoli, were evacuated on Saturday. The news agency said the staff of Zaltan oilfield, 55 km (35 miles) southeast of Merada, also declared “a general strike following the worsening of the security situation inside the field and fears of attacks” by Daesh. The employees said in a statement that they decided to form a crisis committee and stop production activities at the oilfield. A Libyan military source attributed the closure to “the collapse of security and low daily production rate due to difficult security conditions.” Merada is about 350 kilometers (220 miles) from Daesh’s Libyan stronghold, the coastal city of Sirte. Daesh has launched several attacks on Libyan oilfields in a bid

  DUBAI: Russia has delivered the first part of an advanced missile defense system to Iran, Iranian media reported Monday, starting to equip Tehran with technology that was blocked before it signed a deal with world powers on its nuclear program. The S-300 surface-to-air system was first deployed at the height of the Cold War in 1979. In its updated form it is one of the most advanced systems of its kind and, according to British security think tank RUSI, can engage multiple aircraft and ballistic missiles around 150 km (90 miles) away. Russia's agreement to provide Iran with S-300 has sparked concern in Israel, whose government Iran has said it aims to destroy. In a recorded transmission, state television showed Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari telling a news conference Monday: "I announce today that the first phase of this (delayed) contract has been implemented." Ansari was replying to reporters' questions about videos on social media showing what

As hackers continue to rampage through closely guarded information systems and databases with monotonous regularity, there is a tempting new target for cyberattacks: the world’s nuclear facilities. A warning has already been sounded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has urged the world community to intensify efforts to protect nuclear facilities from possible attacks. Pointing out the nuclear industry was not immune to such attacks, IAEA DirectorGeneral Yukiya Amano says there should be a serious attempt at protecting nuclear and radioactive material – since “reports of actual or attempted cyberattacks are now virtually a daily occurrence.” The United States, whose defence networks at the Pentagon and also its intelligence agencies have already been compromised by hackers largely from Russia and China, is increasingly concerned about possible cyberattacks by terrorist organisations – specifically the Islamic State (IS) with its heavy and sophisticated presence on

PressTV An American anti-war activist and journalist says that the THAAD missile deployment in South Korea proposed by the United States, is part of a US plan to launch a nuclear “first strike” attack on Russia or China.” Bruce Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday, after US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said the United States will go ahead with the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea despite Chinese complaints. The US and South Korea began official discussions last month on possible deployment of the THAAD system to combat the alleged threat of North Korea’s missiles. “US Secretary of War Ashton Carter claims that the THAAD deployment in South Korea has nothing to do with China, but in fact he is lying trough his teeth. It has everything to do with China. North Korea is not a threat,” Gagnon said. “In fact missile launched

The Egyptian government has handed over the ownership of disputed Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia amid strong objection from several former officials as well as the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian cabinet announced in a statement released on Saturday that both islands fall within the territorial waters of Saudi Arabia as codified in the maritime border agreement signed between Cairo and Riyadh the previous day. Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail inked the border demarcation accord with the Saudi side in the presence of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in the Federal Presidential Palace, eastern Cairo. The agreement is going to be presented to the parliament for ratification. Analysts, dissidents question legitimacy of agreement Meanwhile, legal experts and opposition figures in Egypt have cast doubt on the legitimacy of the agreement on the two strategic islands, arguing that relinquishing authority over Egyp