ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The city of Al-Bab is located in the northern part of the Aleppo Province (about 36km northeast of Aleppo, about 26km south of border with Turkey), and remains under ISIS control. Its strategic importance increased after Kurdish and SDF forces took Manbij which had served as an important ISIS logistical node for 2.5 years, helping transfer jihadists from Turkey to Syria and back, and also facilitating oil and arms shipments. The Arabic name of the city translates as “the gate” which is entirely reflected by its current importance. Click to see the full-size map The Parties’ Interests The Kurds want to take Al-Bab to reassemble the fragmented Shahba canton (with a administrative center of Tal Rifaat and Manbij), consolidate the areas they control, and proclaim a Syrian Kurdistan as an independent country or a broad autonomy nominally within the SAR. Turkey is implementing Operation Euphrates Shield, with Turkish Army regular units and the so-called FSA ( Ahrar al-Sham, Sultan Murad D

The Iraqi military has received 10 BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles from Bulgaria, according to Iraqi media outlets. The Soviet-made IFVs will serve as yet another tool in the fight against terrorist in the war-torn country. The deal hasn’t officially been reveled as there’s no information in the Bulgarian media, nor any official statements from the Bulgarian government. However, pictures and videos of the vehicles have been posted at the Iraqi news outlets. It’s a public secret that Bulgaria has been one of the top players on the black market for arms in the Middle East, selling all kinds of small weapons, tanks, IFVs and other equipment to both the Syrian and Iraqi governments but also to all the various types of rebel groups and terrorists. The country has had one of the biggest arms reserves left from the Cold War. Earlier this year, reports suggested that Bulgaria had delivered T-72 battle tanks to Iraq.

Corruption and voter intimidation have engulfed the ongoing parliamentary elections in Somalia, the auditor general told the BBC. Bribes of between $1,000 - $5,000 have been paid according to Gen Nur Farah Jimale. The BBC has reported that some candidates have been offering bribes of up to $1.3m to secure votes. They never specified who. Gen Nur told the BBC Somali Service that some seats should be re-run because money had been used to "out-manoeuvre" other candidates. This is despite the elections being conducted by the United Nations. Cases of government resources being used in the election have also been documented, he continued.

NGOs: Grassroots Empowerment or Tool of Information Warfare?   During the early phases of the post-Cold War “New World Order,” NGOs were touted as representing a new wave of international politics. Instead of allowing international issues to be settled in closed meetings, the people themselves, informed by intrepid citizen journalists, would from now on play the key role in setting the agenda. Like most of the promises made in the 1990s, this one also failed to deliver. It became clear that many NGOs, far from representing the “grass roots” of politics, were more akin to the artificial grass-like stadium surface known in the US as “astroturf”. It may look and even, to a degree, feel like the genuine article, but it most certainly is not. Many NGOs, while presenting a public image of bottom-up activism, were funded by major corporations or governments, which had the effect of depriving them of their indepe

Click to see the full-size image The “ Armata ” Universal Combat Platform is a Russian advanced next generation heavy military tracked vehicle platform. It’s the basis of the T-14, the T-15 and several other types of engineering, artillery vehicles. The platform is designed to replace the older Russian battle tanks and military vehicles that are currently used by the Russian military. The T-15 IFV commenced trials in 2014 and was first publicly revealed in 2015. A first batch of pre-production vehicles was delivered in 2015.

Originally appeared at ZeroHedge The desperate flailing of a mainstream-media struggling through the five stages of grief continues as no lesser unbiased foundation of the fourth estate than The Washington Post pushes ahead with its “fake news, blame the Russians” narrative for why their candidate failed so miserably. Citing “two teams of independent researchers” (who surely have a substantial libel litigation provision) who found “Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery… echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal,” the Jeff Bezos-owned website names Drudge, Zero Hedge, and The Ron Paul Institute and countless other outlets among the “useful idiots” that true American patriots should be wary of. “The way that this propaganda apparatus supported Trump was equivalent to some massive amount of a media buy,”said the executive director of PropOrNot, who spoke on the condition of anonymity with the Post. “It was like