ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Saudi Arabia used US-made cluster bombs in two recent airstrikes on a busy market in Yemen, which killed scores of civilians. The March 15 bombing targeting the northwestern town of Mastaba marked the second-deadliest airstrike conducted by the Saudi campaign since it began its war in March 2015. The strike also wounded at least 47 people and left charred bodies lying next to flour sacks and twisted metal. Human Rights Watch said Thursday its investigators traveled to the town in Yemen's Hajjah province the day after the attack and listed the names of 97 civilians killed in the strike, including 25 children. The team said that another 10 bodies were burned beyond recognition, bringing the total number of victims to 107. They found fragments of a GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb as well as its guidance equipment supplied by the US, matching an earlier report by British television channel ITV. “One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen’s

Canada’s Liberal government has refused to cancel a controversial contract to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia despite Riyadh’s human rights violations, particularly in the war against Yemen. Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion signed off on export permits for the USD 15-billion sale of light armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia on Friday. The contract had been initially signed under the previous Conservative government in February 2014. Dion, which has come under fire over authorizing the sales, told reporters on Wednesday that Canada’s credibility would be harmed if it didn’t honor the contract. “Credibility matters. The Liberal Party committed during the 2015 election campaign to respect the previously agreed contract… Our government will not weaken the credibility of the signature of the government of Canada,” Dion said. He also claimed that canceling the agreement would impede Canada’s efforts to convince Saudi Arabia to improve its human rights record. “If we drop the contract, we wi

Germany has unveiled a new package of counter-terror measures amid rising threats of terrorist attacks across Europe. The leaders of Germany's ruling coalition parties unveiled the package at a meeting on Wednesday. The measures include granting more powers to law enforcement to deploy undercover agents, as well as empowering Germany's intelligence agencies to exchange information with foreign partners under clear conditions, Reuters reported. The announcement comes as Europe has faced a wave of terror attacks in recent months, including the Brussels bombings in March and the Paris attacks in November 2015, which were both claimed by the Takfir Daesh terrorist group. In March, German authorities stepped up security measures at airports, train stations, and the country's borders with Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. On April 5, Daesh released a video claiming that it may launch more attacks in European countries. The terror group named London, Berlin and Rome

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