ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

In 2016, Russia delivered the first battalion of S-300PMU-1/SA-20 Gargoyle SAM batteries to Iran under the agreement signed by Moscow and Tehran in 2007. The S-300 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system. It can engage aircraft, cruise missiles and theater ballistic missiles.

By Eric Margolis What a mess! In the crazy Syrian war, US-backed and armed groups are fighting other US-backed rebel groups. How can this be? It is so because the Obama White House had stirred up the war in Syria but then lost control of the process. When the US has a strong president, he can usually keep the military and intelligence agencies on a tight leash. But the Obama administration has had a weak secretary of defense and a bunch of lady strategists who are the worst military commanders since Louis XV, who put his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, in charge of French military forces during the Seven Year’s War. The French were routed by the Prussians. France’s foe, Frederick the Great of Prussia, named one of his dogs, “la Pompadour.” As a result, the two arms of offensive US strategic power, the Pentagon, and CIA, went separate ways in Syria. Growing competition between the US military and militarized CIA broke into the open in Syria. Fed up with the astounding incompetence of th

As territory held by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria continues to shrink, more and more evidence of the militant group’s atrocities have been uncovered with a total of 72 mass graves discovered holding thousands of dead. The Associate Press reported that 72 mass graves had been discovered in the most extensive survey carried of its kind. The known number of the dead buried in the unmarked pits, and known only to a handful of witnesses and ISIS itself, is believed to number between 5,200 to 15,000. The highest number of graves have been found in Iraq’s Sinjar province where ISIS carried out what has been described as a genocide against Yazidis. Sinjar Mountain itself is reportedly dotted with mass graves, six of them containing more than 100 people. One witness to the atrocities in Sinjar, who peered through binoculars as ISIS carried out its extermination, told the AP about handcuffed men from nearby villages being shot and then buried by a waiting bulldozer. The burials las

Damascus, Syria (2:16 A.M.) – The Syrian Army enabled the exit of over 300 civilians from the families of Darayya who lived in the neighboring Muaddamiyah in Western Ghouta resulting in the full conclusion of the Darayya treaty. Al-Masdar’s correspondent was informed through exclusive sources that this step was in the shadow of an agreement that demands the surrender of the militants occupying the town of Muaddamiyah along with their weapons. Under the Amnesty granted by the executive office of the Syrian Arab Republic, the rebels would reclaim their citizen status and be relieved from the lawful consequences of their insurgency. “The agreement in Muaddamiyah will enter execution pages after placing its last thumbprints while regular residents of the city would not need to leave for the refuge centers.” Sources added that the agreement would allow for government institutions to restore their functions and operations inside the city. In a separate development, some militants in Wa

By The Saker Just as the corporate media is not reporting that the USA and Russia are on a collision course which can end up in nuclear war, the corporate media is not reporting that the Ukraine is falling apart. That does not mean, however, that this is not happening. It is. In fact, it has been for a long while already, but since that collapse is smoothed out by a lack of military action and by the political support of the Empire, it does not appear to be catastrophic (in the sense of causing a sudden dramatic change). But the signs are all over the place, ranging from the outright bizarre attack by Ukronazi saboteurs on Crimea (which, besides the group which was caught also involved at least two other groups conducting a diversionary reconnaissance by fire against the northeast of the Peninsula) to the quasi daily reports of an “imminent”, but apparently never coming, Ukronazi attack against the Donbass. On the political front, the Ukrainian Jeanne d’Arc, Nadezhda Savchenko, is now

Day 9 of Turkey’s Euphrates Shield Operation saw the Free Syrian Army, the Turkish military and Turkey-backed Islamist proxies capture four villages from ISIS . The four villages captured were Sabuniyah east, Sabuniyah west, Tell Aghbar and Sha’inah, that all lay west of Jarablus. These advancements now being the Turkey-backed militants within 6km of Sarjur lake. Meanwhile in al-Rai however, ISIS recaptured 4 villages from the Turkey-backed militants putting a huge dent on there offensive to connect their areas of control in al-Rai and Jarablus. Interestingly however was the fact that days ago Turkey-backed Islamist proxies caught and tortured Kurdish YPG militants caught. In return, Islamist’s involved in the beating and torture were they themselves caught by the YPG . The Turkey military had no casualties with the Free Syrian Army and Islamist proxies only having 3 wounded from a land mine. No reports on YPG or ISIS casualties.