ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Originally appeared at Memoriabg , translated by Valentina Tzoneva exclusively for SouthFront Part 2: Middle East War (Part 1 of the monograph, ‘US Makes Wars With Foreign Hands – StratCom or Western Propaganda‘ see HERE [English version can be found HERE ]) Ivan Zapryanov is a military expert on defense and security. He graduated from the National Military University, ‘Vasil Levski’, Veliko Tarnovo, specialty ‘Military Intelligence’. He served in the Special Forces brigade. Between 2004 and 2005, he participated in the mission for post-war reconstruction of Iraq in the composition of the 4th Infantry Battalion, and in 2010, in the ISAF mission in the composition of the 18thBulgarian contingent in Afghanistan. He graduated from the Command and Staff College of the University of the Marine Corps, Quantico, USA. In 2014, he graduated in ‘Analysis of Defense’ at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, USA. He has completed a ‘Selection and Training of Operators of the Special Forces’

Government forces are putting pressure on Jaish al-Islam terrorist group in the Eastern Ghouta region near the Syrian capital, Damascus. Recently, the Syrian army captured the Ferzat Hill and launched attacks in terrorists near the villages of Hawsh Salhiyah and Nashabiyah. Government troops deployed the Ferzat Hill and set a fire control over the road between Hawsh Salhiyah and Nashabiyah. In the nearest future, the Syrian army and the National Defense Forces will likely make an attempt to seize these villages localted near the important crossroads in the eastern part of the region. Click to see the full-size map

[AFP] Appeared at MoonOfAlabama The NYT laments today that international negotiations about the situation in Syria now continue without any U.S. participation: Russia, Iran and Turkey Meet for Syria Talks, Excluding U.S. Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday to work toward a political accord to end Syria’s nearly six-year war, leaving the United States on the sidelines as the countries sought to drive the conflict in ways that serve their interests.Secretary of State John Kerry was not invited. Nor was the United Nations consulted. With pro-government forces having made critical gains on the ground, … (Note: The last sentence originally and correctly said “pro-Syrian forces …”, not “pro-government forces …”. It was altered after I noted the “pro-Syrian” change of tone on Twitter.) Russia kicked the U.S. out of any further talks about Syria after the U.S. blew a deal which, after long delaying negotiations, Kerry had made with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. In a recen

Female Fighters of FARC’s force. Photographer: Alvaro Ybarra Zavala Written by Daniel Edgar There is a disturbing element in the Final Accord negotiated between the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP, a provision which hasn’t been raised in the public discussions and analysis of the Accord or the negotiations that are taking place to finalize a new agreement following its rejection in the referendum held on the 2nd of October 2016. In the main text of the Accord, the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP emphasized that the UN monitoring group will rely heavily on participation by the member countries of CELAC (Latin America and the Caribbean), and Point 6 of the Accord provides that the international component to accompany implementation of specific aspects of the Accord will be comprised of the countries that served in the roles of guarantors and companions during the dialogues. In this respect the text states: “Point 6: Additionally, the accord creates a mechanism so that the inter