ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

SEN. RAND PAUL’S expression of opposition to a $1.1 billion U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia — which has been brutally bombing civilian targets in Yemen using U.S.-made weapons for more than a year now — alarmed CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday afternoon. Blitzer’s concern: That stopping the sale could result in fewer jobs for arms manufacturers. “So for you this is a moral issue,” he told Paul during the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?” Paul stayed on message. “Well not only is it a moral question, its a constitutional question,” Paul said. “Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress n

Patrick Cockburn interviews an Isis militant who claims the movement will rise again in North Africa, that Turkey turned a blind eye to shipments of weapons across the border and that Isis fighters are still present in Jarabulus By Patrick Cockburn  Isis will flourish and survive even if it is defeated in the present battle for Syria and Iraq an Isis militant has told The Independent. In an exclusive interview, Faraj, a 30-year-old veteran fighter from north east Syria, says that “when we say that the Islamic State [Isis] is everlasting and expanding, it is not a mere poetic or propaganda phrase”. He says the group intends to rebuild its strength in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, adding that “Isis has sleeper agents all over the world and their numbers are increasing”. In his account of his life in Isis, Faraj makes plain that only a year after the caliphate was declared in the wake of the capture of Mosul in 2014, its leaders could foresee that it might be over

By Moon Of Alabama Russia and the U.S. agreed to some new Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) in Syria. The general negative points: This CoH, like the first one in February, comes at a moment where the Syrian government forces have an advantage in the field and are on the verge of renewed offensives. It gives the opposition the time to reorganize and rearm. It severely restricts Syrian sovereignty. The general positive points: The Syrian government lacks the capacity for a fully military solution of the conflict. The agreement is a possible path to a political solution. It gives the government time to rebuild its army and to issue and train on new equipment. It has enough flexibility to allow for local escalation when and where needed. On the agreement itself. The Syrian government has, according to the Russians, agreed to it. The parties agreed to keep many details secret to prevent other actors from spoiling it. The agreement will start on sundown of September 12 The timeline, as

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested he and the US are ready to drive so-called Islamic State (IS) from its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. Mr Erdogan said US President Barack Obama floated the idea of joint action against the militants when they met at the G20 summit in China. He said Turkey would have "no problem" with such action. Last month Turkey launched an operation inside Syria, targeting both IS and Kurdish rebels. The US State Department would not confirm the details of Mr Erdogan's statement, but an official said it was important that "local forces" were involved in the fight to deliver "a lasting defeat" to IS. "The actions that Turkey is currently taking along its border with Syria, with US support, is having the important effect of isolating Raqqa," the official said. "That is a critical step in our ultimate objective to liberate Raqqa from Isil (IS) control." Turkish-backed militia have driven IS from

Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that Turkish military forces, the Free Syrian Army and Turkey-backed Islamist proxies had successfully expelled “terrorist organizations,” from the Syria-Turkey border. “From Azaz to Jarablus, our 91-kilometer border has been completely secured,” he said during a televised speech. UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the claims made by Yildirim, stating that militants backed by “Turkish tanks and warplanes” had taken several villages “after ISIS withdrew from them, ending ISIS presence… on the border.” ISIS and Turkey once had a profitable relationships with Syrian oil illegally being traded between the two. This was not reduced to blood-oil but also stolen antiquities and other equipment.

Homs, Syria (12:35 A.M.) – The Russian Air Force carried out several airstrikes over the northeastern countryside of the Homs Governorate on Wednesday, targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) headquarters near the Al-Sha’er Gas Fields. According to the government-backed “National Defense Forces,” the Islamic State’s headquarters near the Al-Sha’er Gas Fields was destroyed on Wednesday after a violent raid was conducted over their positions. In addition to the airstrikes over the Al-Sha’er Gas Fields, the Russian and Syrian air forces also targeted the Islamic State’s positions at the desert villages of ‘Arak and Sukhanah.

Saudi Arabia is increasingly using the internationally-prohibited cluster bombs in its airstrikes on Yemen, thus doubling the casualties among women and children. According to the Yemeni news agency, SABA, Saudi fighter jets pounded, yesterday, the district of Baqem in the northern province of Sa’ada with cluster bombs. It is believed that at least 105 Yemeni civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed by cluster bombs dropped by Saudi warplanes during 2015. The UK-based Thomson Reuters Corporation published a report on behalf of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) saying these missiles which can be fired on the ground or in the air are capable of turning into hundreds of smaller bombs influencing a larger area. These smaller splinter versions of these bombshells survive on the ground and act as a potential threat like a landmine. Due to their miniature design and toy-like appearance, these bombs pose a great danger to children in particular.

Yesterday saw a series of dead blasts rio through Damascus, Tartous, Homs and Hasakah. ISIS took responsibility for the attacks. Bahram Qassemi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, condemned the attacks and highlighted the Saudi Wahhabi ideology that ISIS follow. “The actions taken by the criminal Takfiri terrorists and their Wahhabi supporters to target civilian citizens indicates their dejection and defeat in military warfare and the defeat of their political pipe dreams in the region,” he said. He then explained that the international community had to stop being indifferent to the crimes committed in Syria and Yemen. “International conventions and the international community have to stop remaining indifferent toward those ordering, supporting, and perpetrating these reprehensible crimes,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.